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THE BOOK ONLY
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Gift of
YALE UNIVERSITY
With the aid of the
ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION
1949
SELECTED WRITINGS OF
Gertrude Stein
SELECTED WRITINGS OF
Gertrude Stein
EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
by Carl Van Vechten
RANDOM HOUSE - NEW YORK
FIRST PRINTING
Copyright, 1946, by Random House, Inc.
Published simultaneously in Canada by
Random House of Canada Limited
The editor and publishers acknowledge their
indebtedness to the Hogarth Press for Composition
as Explanation and Preciosilla; to Vanity Fair for
Have They Attached Mary. He Giggled. (A
Political Caricature] ; To The Atlantic Monthly for
The Winner Loses.
Designer: Ernst Rcichl
Manufactured in the UnitcdStal
by the Haddon Craftsmen, Inc., Scranton, Pa.
Contents
A Message from Gertrude Stein vii
A Stein Song by Carl Van Vechten ix
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas 3
The Gradual Making of The Making of Americans 211
The Making of Americans (Selected Passages) 229
Three Portraits of Painters:
CEZANNE 289
MATISSE 289
PICASSO 293
Melanctha: EACH ONE AS SHE MAY 299
Tender Buttons 407
Composition as Explanation 453
Portrait of Mabel Dodge at the Villa Curonia 465
Have They Attacked Mary. He Giggled (A POLITICAL CARICATURE) 471
As a Wife Has a Cow: A LOVE STORY 481
Two Poems:
SUSIE ASADO 485
PRECIOSILLA 486
Two Plays:
LADIES' VOICES 489
WHAT HAPPENED 491
Miss Furr and Miss Skeene 497
Contents
A Sweet Tail (Gypsies) 505
Four Saints in Three Acts 511
The Winner Loses: A PICTURE OF OCCUPIED FRANCE 543
The Coming of the Americans (from WARS i HAVE SEEN) 567
FRONTISPIECE: Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in the garden
of their villa at Bilignin, 1934. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten.
VI
A Message from Gertrude Stein
I always wanted to be historical, from almost a baby on, I felt that way
about it, and Carl was one of the earliest ones that made me be certain
that I was going to be. When I was around fourteen I used to love to say
to myself those awful lines of George Eliot, May I be one of those im-
mortal something or other, I havent the poem here and although I knew
then how it went I do not now, and then later when they used to ask me
when I was going back to America, not until I am a lion, I said, I was not
completely certain that I was going to be but now here I am, thank you
all. How terribly exciting each one of these were, first there was the doing
of them, the intense feeling that they made sense, then the doubt and then
each time over again the intense feeling that they did make sense. It was
Carl who arranged for the printing of Tender Buttons, he knew and
what a comfort it was that there was the further knowing of the printed
page, so naturally it was he that would choose and introduce because he
was the first that made the first solemn contract and even though the
editor did disappear, it was not before the edition was printed and dis-
tributed, wonderful days, and so little by little it was built up and all the
time Carl wrote to me and I wrote to him and he always knew, and it
was always a comfort and now he has put down all his knowledge of
what I did and it is a great comfort. Then there was my first publisher
who was commercial but who said he would print and he would publish
even if he did not understand and if he did not make money, it sounds
like a fairy tale but it is true, Bennett said, I will print a book of yours a
year whatever it is and he has, and often I have worried but he always
said there was nothing to worry about and there wasnt. And now I am
pleased here are the selected writings and naturally I wanted more, but
I do and can say that all that are here are those that I wanted the most,
thanks and thanks again.
„ . GERTRUDE STEIN
Pans
June 18, 1946
VII
A Stein Song
Gertrude Stein rings bells, loves baskets, and wears handsome waist-
coats. She has a tenderness for green glass and buttons have a tender-
ness for her. In the matter of fans you can only compare her with a
motion-picture star in Hollywood and three generations of young
writers have sat at her feet. She has influenced without coddling them.
In her own time she is a legend and in her own country she is with
honor. Keys to sacred doors have been presented to her and she under-
stands how to open them. She writes books for children, plays for actors,
and librettos for operas. Each one of them is one. For her a rose is a rose
and how!
I composed this strictly factual account of Miss Stein and her activities
for a catalogue of the Gotham Book Mart in 1940, but all that I said
then seems to be truer than ever today. Gertrude Stein currently is not
merely a legend, but also a whole folklore, a subject for an epic poem,
and the young GIs who crowded into her Paris apartment on the rue
Christine during and after the Greater War have augmented the num-
ber of her fans until their count is as hard to reckon as that of the grains
of sand on the shore by the sea. During the war I frequently received
letters from soldiers and sailors who, with only two days' furlough at
their disposal and a long way to travel, sometimes by jeep, spent all of
their free hours in Paris with the author of Tender Buttons. Other GIs
bore her away on a flying tour of Germany and still others carried her
by automobile to Belgium to speak to their cpmrades there. In Paris she
gave public talks to groups of them too large to fit into her apartment.
Life and the New Yorf( Times Magazine contracted for articles from her
pen. Her play of existence in occupied France, Yes Is for a Very Young
Man, was presently produced at the Community Playhouse in Pasadena,
California. Some of these tributes, naturally, Were due to her personality
and charm, but most of them stem directly from the library shelves
which hold her collected works. Furthermore, as she once categorically
ix
x A STEIN SONG
informed Alfred Harcourt, it is to her so-called "difficult" works that
she owes her world-wide celebrity.
There is more direct testimony regarding her experiences with the
GIs in her letters to me. On November 26, 1944, after the coming of the
Americans, an event excitingly described in this Collection, she cabled
me: "Joyous Days. Endless Love." In 1945, she wrote, "How we love the
American army we never do stop loving the American army one single
minute." If you will recall Alexandre Dumas's motto, J'aime qui m'aime,
you will be certain they loved her too. Still later she wrote me: "Enclosed
is a description of a talk I gave them which did excite them, they walked
me home fifty strong after the lecture was over and in the narrow
streets of the quarter they made all the automobiles take side streets, the
police looked and followed a bit but gave it up." Captain Edmund
Geisler, her escort on the Belgian excursion, said to me, "Wherever she
spoke she was frank and even belligerent. She made the GIs awfully
mad, but she also made them think and many ended in agreement with
her."
H
In Everybody's Autobiography, Gertrude Stein confesses : "It always did
bother me that the American public were more interested in me than in
my work." Perhaps this statement may be affirmed justifiably of the
anonymous masses, but it would be incorrect to apply it generally to the
critics, novelists, and reviewers who frequently have considered her
writing worth discussing seriously. It has occurred to me that a brief
summary of the opinions of a few of these distinguished gentlemen
might serve to reassure the reading world at large and Miss Stein her-
self on this controversial point.
Andre Maurois, for example, says of her : "In the universal confusion
(the war years and after) she remains intelligent; she has kept her poetic
sense and even her sense of humor." Of Wars I Have Seen he writes :
"The originality of the ideas, the deliberate fantasy of the comparisons,
the naivete of the tone, combined with the profundity of the thought,
the repetitions, the absence of punctuation, all that first irritates the
reader finally convinces him so that more orthodox styles appear insipid
to him. Gertrude Stein is believed to be a difficult writer. This is false.
A STEIN SONG xi
There is not a single phrase in this book that cannot be comprehended
by a schoolgirl of sixteen years."
Here is Ben Ray Redman's testimony : "Few writers have ever dared
to be, or have ever been able to be, as simple as she, as simple as a child,
pointing straight, going straight to the heart of a subject, to its roots;
pointing straight, when and where adults would take a fancier way than
pointing because they have learned not to point. ... In the past, per-
haps wilfully, she has often failed to communicate, and it was either her
misfortune or her fun, depending on her intention."
Or perhaps you would prefer Virgil Thomson's capsule definition:
"To have become a Founding Father of her century is her own reward
for having long ago, and completely, dominated her language."
An earlier, sympathetic, and highly descriptive view is that of Sher-
wood Anderson: "She is laying word against word, relating sound to
sound, feeling for the taste, the smell, the rhythm of the individual
word. She is attempting to do something for the writers of our English
speech that may be better understood after a time, and she is not in a
hurry. . . . There is a thing one might call 'the extension of the prov-
ince of his art' one wants to achieve. One works with words and one
would like words that have a taste on the lips, that have a perfume to
the nostrils, rattling words one can throw into a box and shake, making
a sharp jingling sound, words that, when seen on the printed page, have
a distinct arresting effect upon the eye, words that when they jump out
from under the pen one may feel with the fingers as one might caress
the cheeks of his beloved. And what I think is that these books of Ger-
trude Stein do in a very real sense recreate life in words."
William Carlos Williams's opinion is correlated to the above: "Hav-
ing taken the words to her choice, to emphasize further what she has in
mind she has completely unlinked them (in her most recent work:
1930) from their former relationships to the sentence. This was abso-
lutely essential and unescapable. Each under the new arrangement has
a quality of its own, but not conjoined to carry the burden science,
philosophy, and every higgledy-piggledy figment of law and order have
been laying upon them in the past. They are like a crowd at Coney
Island, let us say, seen from an airplane. . . . She has placed writing
on a plane where it may deal unhampered with its own affairs, unbur-
dened with scientific and philosophic lumber."
xii A STEIN SONG
Edmund Wilson feels compelled to admit: "Whenever we pick up
her writings, however unintelligible we may find them, we are aware of
a literary personality of unmistakable originality and distinction."
Julian Sawyer contends: "If the name of anything or everything is
dead, as Miss Stein has always rightly contested, the only thing to do
to keep it alive is to rename it. And that is what Miss Stein did and
does."
Pursuing these commentators, I fall upon Thornton Wilder who as-
serts: "There have been too many books that attempted to flatter or
woo or persuade or coerce the reader. Miss Stein's theory of the audience
insists on the fact that the richest rewards for the reader have come from
those works in which the authors admitted no consideration of an audi-
ence into their creating mind."
And as a coda, allow me to permit Joseph Alsop, Jr., to speak : "Miss
Stein is no out-pensioner upon Parnassus; no crank; no seeker after
personal publicity; no fool. She is a remarkably shrewd woman, with an
intelligence both sensitive and tough, and a single one of her books,
Three Lives, is her sufficient ticket of admission to the small company
of authors who have had something to say and have known how to
say it."
HI
If Picasso is applauded for painting pictures which do not represent any-
thing he has hitherto seen, if Schoenberg can pen a score that sounds
entirely new even to ears accustomed to listen to modern music, why
should an employer of English words be required to form sentences
which are familiar in meaning, shape, and sound to any casual reader ?
Miss Stein herself implies somewhere that where there is communica-
tion (or identification) there can be no question of creation. This is solid
ground, walked on realistically, as anyone who has been exposed to
performances of music by Reger, for example, can readily testify. How-
ever, it must be borne in mind that composers and painters are not
always inspired to absolute creation: Schoenberg wrote music for Pel-
leas et Melisande and the tuneful Vertyaerte Nacht, while Picasso had
his rose and blue and classic periods which are representational. Like
the composer and painter Miss Stein has her easier moments (The Auto-
biography of Alice B. Tobias, for instance, is written in imitation of
A STEIN SONG xiii
Miss Toklas's own manner) and even in her more "difficult" pages
there are variations, some of which are in the nature of experiment.
One of the earliest of her inventions was her use of repetition which
she describes as "insistence." "Once started expressing this thing, ex-
pressing anything there can be no repetition because the essence of that
expression is insistence, and if you insist you must each time use em-
phasis and if you use emphasis it is not possible while anybody is alive
that they should use exactly the same emphasis. ... It is exactly like
a frog hopping he cannot ever hop exactly the same distance or the
same way of hopping at every hop. A bird's singing is perhaps the
nearest thing to repetition but if you listen they too vary their insistence."
Then she began to find new names for things, names which were not
nouns, if possible, and, renaming things, became so enchanted some-
times with her own talent and the music of the words as they dropped
that she became enamored of the magic of the mere sounds, but quickly
she sensed this was an impasse and began more and more to strive to
express her exact meaning with pronouns, conjunctions, and participial
clauses. After a while she came back to nouns, realizing that nouns,
the names of things, make poetry, "When I said, A rose is a rose is a rose,
and then later made that into a ring, I made poetry and what did I do I
caressed completely caressed and addressed a noun." She had another
period of exciting discovery when she found that paragraphs are emo-
tional and sentences are not. Finally, it came to her that she could con-
dense and concentrate her meaning into one word at a time, "even if
there were always one after the other." "I found," she has told us,
"that any kind of book if you read with glasses and somebody is cutting
your hair and so you cannot keep the glasses on and you use your
glasses as a magnifying glass and so read word by word reading word
by word makes the writing that is not anything be something. ... So
that shows to you that a whole thing is not interesting because as a
whole well as a whole there has to be remembering and forgetting, but
one at a time, oh one at a time is something oh yes definitely something."
But do not get the idea that her essential appeal is to the ear or the
subconscious. "It is her eyes and mind that are important and concerned
in choosing." Perhaps the most concrete explanation of her work that
she has ever given us is the following (from The Autobiography of
Alice B. Tobias) : "Gertrude Stein, in her work, has always been pos-
sessed by the intellectual passion for exactitude in the description of
xiv A STEIN SONG
inner and outer reality. She has produced a simplification by this con-
centration, and as a result the destruction of associational emotion in
poetry and prose. She knows that beauty, music, decoration, the result
of emotion should never be the cause, even events should not be the
cause of emotion nor should emotion itself be the cause of poetry or
prose. They should consist of an exact reproduction of either an outer
or inner reality." She says again, this time in What Are Masterpieces,
"If you do not remember while you are writing, it may seem confused
to others but actually it is clear and eventually that clarity will be clear
that is what a masterpiece is, but if you remember while you are writing
it will seem clear at the time to any one but the clarity will go out of it
that is what a masterpiece is not."
In whatever style it pleases Miss Stein to write, however, it is her
custom to deal almost exclusively with "actualities," portraits of people
she f{nows, descriptions of places, objects, and events which surround
her and with which she is immediately concerned. This quality, true of
almost all of her writing since Three Lives and The Making of Amer-
icans, her perpetual good humor, and her sense of fun, which leads her
occasionally into intentional obscurantism, all assist in keeping part of
her prospective audience at a little distance behind her. There is, for
instance, in Four Saints at the close of the celebrated Pigeons on the
Grass air (an air the meaning of which has been elucidated both by
Miss Stein and Julian Sawyer) a passage which runs Lucy Lily Lily
Lucy, etc., beautifully effective as sung to the music in Virgil Thom-
son's score. Those who believe this to be meaningless embroidery, like
Hey, nonny nonny in an Elizabethan ballad, are perfectly sane. Miss
Stein enjoyed the sound of the words, but the words did not come to her
out of thin air, as is evidenced by a discovery I made recently. Lucy Lily
Lamont is a girl who lives on page 35 of Wars I Have Seen and from
the context one might gather that Miss Stein knew her a long time ago.
Another example of this bewildering kind of reference is the "October
15" paragraph in As a Wife Has a Cow in the current collection. In
my note to that idyl I have referred the reader to the probable origin
of this passage. The books of this artist are indeed full of these sly refer-
ences to matters unknown to their readers and only someone completely
familiar with the routine, and roundabout, ways of Miss Stein's daily
life would be able to explain every line of her prose, but without even
A STEIN SONG xv
mentioning Joyce's Ulysses or Eliot's The Waste Land, could not the
same thing be said truthfully of Shakespeare's Sonnets ?
No wonder Miss Stein exclaims pleasurably somewhere or other:
"Also there is why is it that in this epoch the only real literary thinking
has been done by a woman."
IV
The material I have selected for this Collection contains at least a sample
of practically every period and every manner in Gertrude Stein's career
from the earliest to the latest. Her five earliest works (with the excep-
tion of Cultivated. Motor Automatism, which she wrote as a student)
are included, all but one complete, and it is significant that none of
them resembles its neighbor in style. Melanctha, in manner, differs from
The Making of Americans and the same may be said of Tender Buttons,
the Portrait of Mable Dodge at the Villa Curonia, and the portraits of
Matisse and Picasso published in Camera WorJ^ in 1912. Definite dates
do not mark her various modes into periods as they do those of Picasso.
Her very latest books, Wars I Have Seen and Brewsie and Willie, are
not written in perplexing prose. I have, I think, included a sample of
most of the forms in which she has worked. Not only the famous Four
Saints, but also two other plays from an earlier period are to be discov-
ered herein. Examples of her poetry, of her lectures, and essays may be
examined in these pages. Lack of space has prevented me from includ-
ing either of her novels, Ida or Lucy Church Amiably. Miss Furr and
Miss Sl^ene and Melanctha, however, give sufficient indication of her
talent for fiction. Of her two books for children, The World Is Round
and the unpublished (except in French translation) First Reader noth-
ing is offered either. On the other hand, every element of her so-called
"difficult" manner is represented together with two essays attempting to
explain this manner and, of course, The Autobiography of Alice B.
Tobias explains pretty nearly everything to everybody. Dear Gertrude,
may I do a little caressing myself and say truthfully A Collection is a
Collection is a Collection ?
CARL VAN VECHTEN
New Yor{, April n, 1946
My introduction to this volume was written, and sent to the printer,
a little over three months before Gertrude Stein's death in Paris, July 27,
7946, but I feel that it is wiser, for both sentimental and practical reasons,
to let it stand unchanged.
C. V. V.
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
Alice B. Toklas
Written in 1932, published by Harcourt Brace and Co., in 1933. An
abridged version had appeared previously in the ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
In EVERYBODY'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY Gertrude Stein has written: "Well any-
way it was a beautiful autumn in Bilignin and in six wee^s I wrote THE
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS and it was published and it became
a best seller. . . . 7 bought myself a new eight-cylinder Ford car and
the most expensive coat made to order by Hermes and fitted by the man
who makes horse covers for race horses for Basket the white poodle and
two collars studded for Basket. I had never made any money before in
my life and I was most excited!'
1 Before I Came to Paris
I was born in San Francisco, California. I have in consequence always
preferred living in a temperate climate but it is difficult, on the continent
of Europe or even in America, to find a temperate climate and live in it.
My mother's father was a pioneer, he came to California in '49, he
married my grandmother who was very fond of music. She was a pupil
of Clara Schumann's father. My mother was a quiet charming woman
named Emilie.
My father came of polish patriotic stock. His grand-uncle raised a
regiment for Napoleon and was its colonel. His father left his mother
just after their marriage, to fight at the barricades in Paris, but his
wife having cut off his supplies, he soon returned and led the life of
a conservative well to do land owner.
I myself have had no liking for violence and have always enjoyed the
pleasures of needlework and gardening. I am fond of paintings, furni-
ture, tapestry, houses and flowers and even vegetables and fruit-trees. I
like a view but I like to sit with my back turned to it.
I led in my childhood and youth the gently bred existence of my class
and kind. I had some intellectual adventures at this period but very quiet
ones. When I was about nineteen years of age I was a great admirer of
Henry James. I felt that The Awkward Age would make a very remark-
able play and I wrote to Henry James suggesting that I dramatise it. I
had from him a delightful letter on the subject and then, when I felt
my inadequacy, rather blushed for myself and did not keep the letter.
Perhaps at that time I did not feel that I was justified in preserving it,
at any rate it no longer exists.
Up to my twentieth year I was seriously interested in music. I studied
and practised assiduously but shortly then it seemed futile, my mother
had died and there Nvas no unconquerable sadness, but there was no
real interest that led me on. In the story Ada in Geography and Plays
3
4 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
Gertrude Stein has given a very good description of me as I was at that
time.
From then on for about six years I was well occupied. I led a pleasant
life, I had many friends, much amusement many interests, my life was
reasonably full and I enjoyed it but I was not very ardent in it. This
brings me to the San Francisco fire which had as a consequence that the
elder brother of Gertrude Stein and his wife came back from Paris to
San Francisco and this led to a complete change in my life.
I was at this time living with my father and brother. My father was a
quiet man who took things quietly, although he felt them deeply. The
first terrible morning of the San Francisco fire I woke him and told
him, the city has been rocked by an earthquake and is now on fire. That
will give us a black eye in the East, he replied turning and going to sleep
again. I remember that once when my brother and a comrade had gone
horse-back riding, one of the horses returned riderless to the hotel, the
mother of the other boy began to make a terrible scene. Be calm madam,
said my father, perhaps it is my son who has been killed. One of his
axioms I always remember, if you must do a thing do it graciously. He
also told me that a hostess should never apologise for any failure in her
household arrangements, if there is a hostess there is insofar as there is
a hostess no failure.
As I was saying we were all living comfortably together and there had
been in my mind no active desire or thought of change. The disturbance
of the routine of our lives by the fire followed by the coming of Gertrude
Stem's older brother and his wife made the difference.
Mrs. Stein brought with her three little Matisse paintings, the first
modern things to cross the Atlantic. I made her acquaintance at this
time of general upset and she showed them to me, she also told me many
stories of her life in Paris. Gradually I told my father that perhaps I
would leave San Francisco. He was not disturbed by this, after all there
was at that time a great deal of going and coming and there were many
friends of mine going. Within a year I also had gone and I had come
to Paris. There I went to see Mrs. Stein who had in the meantime re-
turned to Paris, and there at her house I met Gertrude Stein. I was im-
pressed by the coral brooch she wore and by her voice. I may say that
only three times in my life have I met a genius and each time a bell
within me rang and I was not mistaken, and I may say in each case it
was before there was any general recognition of the quality of genius in
BEFORE I CAME TO PARIS 5
them. The three geniuses of whom I wish to speak are Gertrude Stein,
Pablo Picasso and Alfred Whitehead. I have met many important peo-
ple, I have met several great people but I have only known three first
class geniuses and in each case on sight within me something rang. In
no one of the three cases have I been mistaken. In this way my new
full life began.
2 My Arrival in Paris
This was the year 1907. Gertrude Stein was just seeing through the press
Three Lives which she was having privately printed, and she was deep
in The Making of Americans, her thousand page book. Picasso had just
finished his portrait of her which nobody at that time liked except the
painter and the painted and which is now so famous, and he had just
begun his strange complicated picture of three women, Matisse had
just finished his Bonheur de Vivre, his first big composition which gave
him the name of fauve or a zoo. It was the moment Max Jacob has since
called the heroic age of cubism. I remember not long ago hearing Picasso
and Gertrude Stein talking about various things that had happened at
that time, one of them said but all that could not have happened in that
one year, oh said the other, my dear you forget we were young then and
we did a great deal in a year.
There are a great many things to tell of what was happening then and
what had happened before, which led up to then, but now I must de-
scribe what I saw when I came.
The home at 27 rue de Fleurus consisted then as it does now of a tiny
pavilion of two stories with four small rooms, a kitchen and bath, and
a very large atelier adjoining. Now the atelier is attached to the pavilion
by a tiny hall passage added in 1914 but at that time the atelier had its
own entrance, one rang the bell of the pavilion or knocked at the door
of the atelier, and a great many people did both, but more knocked at
the atelier. I was privileged to do both. I had been invited to dine on
Saturday evening which was the evening when everybody came, and
indeed everybody did come. I went to dinner. The dinner was cooked
by Helene. I must tell a little about Helene.
Helene had already been two years with Gertrude Stein and her
brother. She was one of those admirable bonnes in other words excellent
maids of all work, good cooks thoroughly occupied with the welfare of
their employers and of themselves, firmly convinced that everything
6
MY ARRIVAL IN PARIS 7
purchasable was far too dear. Oh but it is dear, was her answer to any
question. She wasted nothing and carried on the household at the
regular rate of eight francs a day. She even wanted to include guests at
that price, it was her pride, but of course that was difficult since she for
the honour of her house as well as to satisfy her employers always had
to give every one enough to eat. She was a most excellent cook and she
made a very good souffle. In those days most of the guests were living
more or less precariously, no one starved, some one always helped but
still most of them did not live in abundance. It was Braque who said
about four years later when they were all beginning to be known, with
a sigh and a smile, how life has changed we all now have cooks who
can make a souffle.
Helene had her opinions, she did not for instance like Matisse. She
said a frenchman should not stay unexpectedly to a meal particularly if
he asked the servant beforehand what there was for dinner. She said
foreigners had a perfect right to do these things but not a frenchman
and Matisse had once done it. So when Miss Stein said to her, Monsieur
Matisse is staying for dinner this evening, she would say, in that case I
will not make an omelette but fry the eggs. It takes the same number of
eggs and the same amount of butter but it shows less respect, and he
will understand.
Helene stayed with the household until the end of 1913. Then her
husband, by that time she had married and had a little boy, insisted that
she work for others no longer. To her great regret she left and later she
always said that life at home was never as amusing as it had been at
the rue de Fleurus. Much later, only about three years ago, she came
back for a year, she and her husband had fallen on bad times and her boy
had died. She was as cheery as ever and enormously interested. She said
isn't it extraordinary, all those people whom I knew when they were
nobody are now always mentioned in the newspapers, and the other
night over the radio they mentioned the name of Monsieur Picasso.
Why they even speak in the newspapers of Monsieur Braque, who used
to hold up the big pictures to hang because he was the strongest, while
the janitor drove the nails, and they are putting into the Louvre, just
imagine it, into the Louvre, a picture by that little poor Monsieur Rous-
seau, who was so timid he did not even have courage enough to knock
at the door. She was terribly interested in seeing Monsieur Picasso and
his wife and child and cooked her very best dinner for him, but how he
8 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
has changed, she said, well, said she, I suppose -that is natural but then
he has a lovely son. We thought that really Helene had come back to
give the young generation the once over. She had in a way but she was
not interested in them. She said they made no impression on her which
made them all very sad because the legend of her was well known to all
Paris. After a year things were going better again, her husband was
earning more money, and she once more remains at home. But to come
back to 1907.
Before I tell about the guests I must tell what I saw. As I said being
invited to dinner I rang the bell of the little pavilion and was taken into
the tiny hall and then into the small dining room lined with books. On
the only free space, the doors, were tacked up a few drawings by Picasso
and Matisse. As the other guests had not yet come Miss Stein took me
into the atelier. It often rained in Paris and it was always difficult to go
from the little pavilion to the atelier door in the rain in evening clothes,
but you were not to mind such things as the hosts and most of the
guests did not. We went into the atelier which opened with a yale key
the only yale key in the quarter at that time, and this was not so much
for safety, because in those days the pictures had no value, but because
the key was small and could go into a purse instead of being enormous
as french keys were. Against the walls were several pieces of large Italian
renaissance furniture and in the middle of the room was a big renais-
sance table, on it a lovely inkstand, and at one end of it note-books
neatly arranged, the kind of note-books french children use, with pic-
tures of earthquakes and explorations on the outside of them. And on
all the walls right up to the ceiling were pictures. At one end of the room
was a big cast iron stove that Helene came in and filled with a rattle,
and in one corner of the room was a large table on which were horse-
shoe nails and pebbles and little pipe cigarette holders which one looked
at curiously but did not touch, but which turned out later to be accumula-
tions from the pockets of Picasso and Gertrude Stein. But to return to
the pictures. The pictures were so strange that one quite instinctively
looked at anything rather than at them just at first. I have refreshed my
memory by looking at some snap shots taken inside the atelier at that
time. The chairs in the room were also all italian renaissance, not very
comfortable for short-legged people and one got the habit of sitting on
one's legs. Miss Stein sat near the stove in a lovely high-backed one and
she peacefully let her legs hang, which was a matter of habit, and when
MY ARRIVAL IN PARIS 9
any one of the many visitors came to ask her a question she lifted her-
self up out of this chair and usually replied in french, not just now.
This usually referred to something they wished to see, drawings which
were put away, some german had once spilled ink on one, or some other
not to be fulfilled desire. But to return to the pictures. As I say they
completely covered the white-washed walls right up to the top of the
very high ceiling! The room was lit at this time by high gas fixtures.
This was the second stage. They had just been put in. Before that there
had only been lamps, and a stalwart guest held up the lamp while the
others looked. But gas had just been put in and an ingenious american
painter named Sayen, to divert his mind from the birth of his first child,
was arranging some mechanical contrivance that would light the high
fixtures by themselves. The old landlady extremely conservative did not
allow electricity in her houses and electricity was not put in until 1914,
the old landlady by that time too old to know the difference, her house
agent gave permission. But this time I am really going to tell about the
pictures.
It is very difficult now that everybody is accustomed to everything to
give some idea of the kind of uneasiness one felt when one first looked
at all these pictures on these walls. In those days there were pictures of
all kinds there, the time had not yet come when there were only Ce-
zannes, Renoirs, Matisses and Picassos, nor as it was even later only
Cezannes and Picassos. At that time there was a great deal of Matisse,
Picasso, Renoir, Cezanne but there were also a great many other things.
There were two Gauguins, there were Manguins, there was a big nude
by Valloton that felt like only it was not like the Odalisque of Manet,
there was a Toulouse-Lautrec. Once about this time Picasso looking at
this and greatly daring said, but all the same I do paint better than he
did. Toulouse-Lautrec had been the most important of his early influ-
ences. I later bought a little tiny picture by Picasso of that epoch. There
was a portrait of Gertrude Stein by Valloton that might have been a
David but was not, there was a Maurice Denis, a little Daumier, many
Cezanne water colours, there was in short everything, there was even a
little Delacroix and a moderate sized Greco. There were enormous Pi-
cassos of the Harlequin period, there were two rows of Matisses, there
was a big portrait of a woman by Cezanne and some little Cezannes,
all these pictures had a history and I will soon tell them. Now I was
confused and I looked and I looked and I was confused. Gertrude Stein
10 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
and her brother were so accustomed to this state of mind in a guest that
they paid no attention to it. Then there was a sharp tap at the atelier
door. Gertrude Stein opened it and a little dark dapper man came in
with hair, eyes, face, hands and feet all very much alive. Hullo Alfy, she
said, this is Miss Toklas. How do you do Miss Toklas, he said very
solemnly. This was Alfy Maurer an old habitue of the house. He had
been there before there were these pictures, when there were only Japa-
nese prints, and he was among those who used to light matches to light
up a little piece of the Cezanne portrait. Of course you can tell it is a
finished picture, he used to explain to the other american painters who
came and looked dubiously, you can tell because it has a frame, now
whoever heard of anybody framing a canvas if ihe picture isn't finished.
He had followed, followed, followed always humbly always sincerely,
it was he who selected the first lot of pictures for the famous Barnes
collection some years later faithfully and enthusiastically. It was he who
when later Barnes came to the house and waved his cheque-book said,
so help me God, I didn't bring him. Gertrude Stein who has an explo-
sive temper, came in another evening and there were her brother, Alfy
and a stranger. She did not like the stranger's looks. Who is that, said
she to Alfy. I didn't bring him, said Alfy. He looks like a Jew, said Ger-
trude Stein, he is worse than that, says Alfy. But to return to that first
evening. A few minutes after Alfy came in there was a violent knock
at the door and, dinner is ready, from Helene. It's funny the Picassos
have not come, said they all, however we won't wait at least Helene
won't wait. So we went into the court and into the pavilion and dining
room and began dinner. It's funny, said Miss Stein, Pablo is always
promptness itself, he is never early and he is never late, it is his pride
that punctuality is the politeness of kings, he even makes Fernande
punctual. Of course he often says yes when he has no intention of doing
what he says yes to, he can't say no, no is not in his vocabulary and you
have to know whether his yes means yes or means no, but when he says
a yes that means yes and he did about tonight he is always punctual.
These were the days before automobiles and nobody worried about acci-
dents. We had just finished the first course when there was a quick
patter of footsteps in the court and Helene opened the door before the
bell rang. Pablo and Fernande as everybody called them at that time
walked in. He, small, quick moving but not restless, his eyes having a
strange faculty of opening wide and drinking in what he wished to see.
MY ARRIVAL IN PARIS 11
He had the isolation and movement of the head of a bull-fighter at the
head of their procession. Fernande was a tall beautiful woman with a
wonderful big hat and a very evidently new dress, they were both very
fussed. I am very upset, said Pablo, but you know very well Gertrude
I am never late but Fernande had ordered a dress for the vernissage to-
morrow and it didn't come. Well here you are anyway, said Miss Stein,
since it's you Helene won't mind. And we all sat down. I was next to
Picasso who was silent and then gradually became peaceful. Alfy paid
compliments to Fernande and she was soon calm and placid. After a
little while I murmured to Picasso that I liked his portrait of Gertrude
Stein. Yes, he said, everybody says that she does not look like it but that
does not make any difference, she will, he said. The conversation soon
became lively it was all about the opening day of the salon independant
which was the great event of the year. Everybody was interested in all
the scandals that would or would not break out. Picasso never exhibited
but as his followers did and there were a great many stories connected
with each follower the hopes and fears were vivacious.
While he were having coffee footsteps were heard in the court quite
a number of footsteps and Miss Stein rose and said, don't hurry, I have
to let them in. And she left.
When we went into the atelier there were already quite a number of
people in the room, scattered groups, single and couples all looking and
looking. Gertrude Stein sat by the stove talking and listening and get-
ting up to open the door and go up to various people talking and listen-
ing. She usually opened the door to the knock and the usual formula
was, de la part de qui venez-vous, who is your introducer. The idea was
that anybody could come but for form's sake and in Paris you have to
have a formula, everybody was supposed to be able to mention the name
of somebody who had told them about it. It was a mere form, really
everybody could come in and as at that time these pictures had no value
and there was no social privilege attached to knowing any one there,
only those came who really were interested. So as I say anybody could
come in, however, there was the formula. Miss Stein once in opening
the door said as she usually did by whose invitation do you come and
we heard an aggrieved voice reply, but by yours, madame. He was a
young man Gertrude Stein had met somewhere and with whom she had
had a long conversation and to whom she had given a cordial invitation
and then had as promptly forgotten.
12 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
The room was soon very very full and who were they all. Groups of
hungarian painters and writers, it happened that some hungarian had
once been brought and the word had spread from him throughout all
Hungary, any village where there was a young man who had ambitions
heard of 27 rue de Fleurus and then he lived but to get there and a
great many did get there. They were always there, all sizes and shapes,
all degrees of wealth and poverty, some very charming, some simply
rough and every now and then a very beautiful young peasant. Then
there were quantities of germans, not too popular because they tended
always to want to see anything that was put away and they tended to
break things and Gertrude Stein has a weakness for breakable objects,
she has a horror of people who collect only, the unbreakable. Then
there was a fair sprinkling of americans, Mildred Aldrich would bring
a group or Sayen, the electrician, or some painter and occasionally an
architectural student would accidentally get there and then there were
the habitues, among them Miss Mars and Miss Squires whom Gertrude
Stein afterwards immortalised in her story of Miss Furr and Miss
Skeene. On that first night Miss Mars and I talked of a subject then
entirely new, how to make up your face. She was interested in types,
she knew that there were femme decorative, femme d'interieur and
femme intrigante; there was no doubt that Fernande Picasso was a
femme decorative, but what was Madame Matisse, femme d'interieur,
I said, and she was very pleased. From time to time one heard the high
Spanish whinnying laugh of Picasso and gay contralto outbreak of Ger-
trude Stein, people came and went, in and out. Miss Stein told me to
sit with Fernande. Fernande was always beautiful but heavy in hand.
I sat, it was my first sitting with a wife of a genius.
Before I decided to write this book my twenty-five years with Ger-
trude Stein, I had often said that I would write, The wives of geniuses
I have sat with. I have sat with so many. I have sat with wives who
were not wives, of geniuses who were real geniuses. I have sat with real
wives of geniuses who were not real geniuses. I have sat with wives of
geniuses, of near geniuses, of would be geniuses, in short 1 have sat very
often and very long with many wives and wives of many geniuses.
As I was saying Fernande, who was then living with Picasso and
had been with him a long time that is to say they were all twenty-four
years old at that time but they had been together a long time, Fernande
was the first wife of a genius I sat with and she was not the least amus-
MY ARRIVAL IN PARIS 13
ing. We talked hats. Fernande had two subjects hats and perfumes. This
first day we talked hats. She liked hats, she had the true french feeling
about a hat, if a hat did not provoke some witticism from a man on the
street the hat was not a success. Later on once in Montmartre she and I
were walking together. She had on a large yellow hat and I had on a
much smaller blue one. As we were walking along a workman stopped
and called out, there go the sun and the moon shining together. Ah, said
Fernande to me with a radiant smile, you see our hats are a success.
Miss Stein called me and said she wanted to have me meet Matisse.
She was talking to a medium sized man with a reddish beard and
glasses. He had a very alert although slightly heavy presence and Miss
Stein and he seemed to be full of hidden meanings. As I came up I
heard her say, Oh yes but it would be more difficult now. We were talk-
ing, she said, of a lunch party we had in here last year. We had just
hung all the pictures and we asked all the painters. You know how paint-
ers are, I wanted to make them happy so I placed each one opposite his
own picture, and they were happy so happy that we had to send out twice
for more bread, when you know France you will know that that means
that they were happy, because they cannot eat and drink without bread
and we had to send out twice for bread so they were happy. Nobody
noticed my little arrangement except Matisse and he did not until just
as he left, and now he says it is a proof that I am very wicked, Matisse
laughed and said, yes I know Mademoiselle Gertrude, the world is a
theatre for you, but there are theatres and theatres, and when you listen
so carefully to me and so attentively and do not hear a word I say then
I do say that you are very wicked. Then they both began talking about
the vernissage of the independent as every one else was doing and of
course I did not know what it was all about. But gradually I knew and
later on I will tell the story of the pictures, their painters and their fol-
lowers and what this conversation meant.
Later I was near Picasso, he was standing meditatively. Do you think,
he said, that I really do look like your president Lincoln. I had thought
a good many things that evening but I had not thought that. You see,
he went on, Gertrude, (I wish I could convey something of the simple
affection and confidence with which he always pronounced her name
and with which she always said, Pablo. In all their long friendship with
all its sometimes troubled moments and its complications this has never
changed.) Gertrude showed me a photograph of him and I have been
14 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
trying to arrange my hair to look like his, I think my forehead does.
I did not know whether he meant it or not but I was sympathetic. I did
not realise then how completely and entirely american was Gertrude
Stein. Later I often teased her, calling her a general, a civil war general
of either or both sides. She had a series of photographs of the civil war,
rather wonderful photographs and she and Picasso used to pore over
them. Then he would suddenly remember the Spanish war and he be-
came very Spanish and very bitter and Spain and America in their per-
sons could say very bitter things about each other's country. But at this
my first evening I knew nothing of all this and so I was polite and that
was all.
And now the evening was drawing to a close. Everybody was leaving
and everybody was still talking about the vernissage of the independent.
I too left carrying with me a card of invitation for the vernissage. And
so this, one of the most important evenings of my life, came to an end.
I went to the vernissage taking with me a friend, the invitation I had
been given admitting two. We went very early. I had been told to go
early otherwise we would not be able to see anything, and there would
be no place to sit, and my friend liked to sit. We went to the building
just put up for this salon. In France they always put things up just for
the day or for a few days and then take them down again. Gertrude
Stein's elder brother always says that the secret of the chronic employ-
ment or lack of unemployment in France is due to the number of men
actively engaged in putting up and taking down temporary buildings.
Human nature is so permanent in France that they can afford to be as
temporary as they like with their buildings. We went to the long low
certainly very very long temporary building that was put up every year
for the independents. When after the war or just before, I forget, the
independent was given permanent quarters in the big exposition build-
ing, the Grand Palais, it became much less interesting. After all it is the
adventure that counts. The long building was beautifully alight with
Paris light.
In earlier, still earlier days, in the days of Seurat, the independent had
its exhibition in a building where the rain rained in. Indeed it was be-
cause of this, that in hanging pictures in the rain, poor Seurat caught
his fatal cold. Now there was no rain coming in, it was a lovely day and
we felt very festive. When we got in we were indeed early as nearly as
possible the first to be there. We went from one room to another and
MY ARRIVAL IN PARIS 15
quite frankly we had no idea which of the pictures the Saturday evening
crowd would have thought art and which were just the attempts of what
in France are known as the Sunday painters, workingmen, hair-dressers
and veterinaries and visionaries who only paint once a week when they
do not have to work. I say we did not know but yes perhaps we did
know. But not about the Rousseau, and there was an enormous Rousseau
there which was the scandal of the show, it was a picture of the officials
of the republic, Picasso now owns it, no that picture we could not know
as going to be one of the great pictures, and that as Helene was to say,
would come to be in the Louvre. There was also there if my memory is
correct a strange picture by the same douanier Rousseau, a sort of apo-
theosis of Guillaume Apollinaire with an aged Marie Laurencin behind
him as a muse. That also I would not have recognised as a serious work
of art. At that time of course I knew nothing about Marie Laurencin
and Guillaume Apollinaire but there is a lot to tell about them later.
Then we went on and saw a Matisse. Ah there we were beginning to
feel at home. We knew a Matisse when we saw it, knew at once and en-
joyed it and knew that it was great art and beautiful. It was a big figure
of a woman lying in among some cactuses. A picture which was after
the show to be at the rue de Fleurus. There one day the five year old
little boy of the janitor who often used to visit Gertrude Stein who was
fond of him, jumped into her arms as she was standing at the open door
of the atelier and looking over her shoulder and seeing the picture cried
out in rapture, oh la la what a beautiful body of a woman. Miss Stein
used always to tell this story when the casual stranger in the aggressive
way of the casual stranger said, looking at this picture, and what is that
supposed to represent.
In the same room as the Matisse, a little covered by a partition, was a
hungarian version of the same picture by one Czobel whom I remem-
bered to have seen at the rue de Fleurus, it was the happy independent
way to put a violent follower opposite the violent but not quite as violent
master.
We went on and on, there were a great many rooms and a great many
pictures in the rooms and finally we came to a middle room and there
was a garden bench and as there were people coming in quite a few
people we sat down on the bench to rest.
We had been resting and looking at every body and it was indeed the
vie de Boheme just as one had seen it in the opera and they were very
16 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
wonderful to look at. Just then somebody behind us put a hand on our
shoulders and burst out laughing. It was Gertrude Stein. You have
seated yourselves admirably, she said. But why, we asked. Because right
here in front of you is the whole story. We looked but we saw nothing
except two big pictures that looked quite alike but not altogether alike.
One is a Braque and one is a Derain, explained Gertrude Stein. They
were strange pictures of strangely formed rather wooden blocked figures,
one if I remember rightly a sort of man and women, the other three
women. Well, she said still laughing. We were puzzled, we had seen
so much strangeness we'did not know why these two were any stranger.
She was quickly lost in an excited and voluble crowd. We recognised
Pablo Picasso and Fernande, we thought we recognised many more, to
be sure everybody seemed to be interested in our corner and we stayed,
but we did not know why they were so especially interested. After a
considerable interval Gertrude Stein came back again, this time evi-
dently even more excited and amused. She leaned over us and said
solemnly, do you want to take french lessons. We hesitated, why yes
we could take french lessons. Well Fernande will give you french les-
sons, go and find her and tell her how absolutely you are pining to take
french lessons. But why should she give us french lessons, we asked.
Because, well because she and Pablo have decided to separate forever.
I suppose it has happened before but not since I have known them. You
know Pablo says if you love a woman you give her money. Well now it
is when you want to leave a woman you have to wait until you have
enough money to give her. Vollard has just bought out his atelier and
so he can afford to separate from her by giving her half. She wants to
install herself in a room by herself and give french lessons, so that is how
you come in. Well what has that to do with these two pictures, asked
my ever curious friend. Nothing, said Gertrude Stein going off with a
great shout of laughter.
I will tell the whole story as I afterward learnt it but now I must find
Fernande and propose to her to take french lessons from her.
I wandered about and looked at the crowd, never had I imagined
there could be so many kinds of men making and looking at pictures.
In America, even in San Francisco, I had been accustomed to see women
at picture shows and some men, but here there were men, men, men,
sometimes women with them but more often three or four men with one
woman, sometimes five or six men with two women. Later on I became
MY ARRIVAL IN PARIS 17
accustomed to this proportion. In one of these groups of five or six men
and two women I saw the Picassos, that is I saw Fernande with her
characteristic gesture, one ringed forefinger straight in the air. As I
afterwards found out she had the Napoleonic forefinger quite as long
if not a shade longer than the middle finger, and this, whenever she was
animated, which after all was not very often because Fernande was^in-
dolent, always went straight up into the air. I waited not wishing to
break into this group of which she at one end and Picasso at the other
end were the absorbed centres but finally I summoned up courage to go
forward and draw her attention and tell her of my desire. Oh yes, she
said sweetly, Gertrude has told me of your desire, it would give me great
pleasure to give you lessons, you and your friend, I will be the next few
days very busy installing myself in my new apartment. Gertrude is
coming to see me the end of the week, if you and your friend would
accompany her we could then make all arrangements. Fernande spoke
a very elegant french, some lapses of course into montmartrois that I
found difficult to follow, but she had been educated to be a school-
mistress, her voice was lovely and she was very very beautiful with a
marvellous complexion. She was a big woman but not too big because
she was indolent and she had the small round arms that give the charac-
teristic beauty to all french women. It was rather a pity that short skirts
ever came in because until then one never imagined the sturdy french
legs of the average french woman, one thought only of the beauty of the
small rounded arms. I agreed to Fernande's proposal and left her.
On my way back to where my friend was sitting I became more ac-
customed not so much to the pictures as to the people. I began to realise
there was a certain uniformity of type. Many years after, that is just
a few years ago, when Juan Gris whom we all loved very much died,
(he was after Pablo Picasso Gertrude Stein's dearest friend) I heard
her say to Braque, she and he were standing together at the funeral, who
are all these people, there are so many and they are so familiar and I do
not know who any of them are. Oh, Braque replied, they are all the
people you used to see at the vernissage of the independent and the
autumn salon and you saw their faces twice a year, year after year, and
that is the reason they are all so familiar.
Gertrude Stein and I about ten days later went to Montmartre, I for
the first time. I have never ceased to love it. We go there every now and
then and I always have the same tender expectant feeling that I had then.
18 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
It is a place where you were always standing and sometimes waiting,
not for anything to happen, but just standing. The inhabitants of Mont-
martre did not sit much, they mostly stood which was just as well as the
chairs, the dining room chairs of France, did not tempt one to sit. So I
went to Montmartre and I began my apprenticeship of standing. We
first went to see Picasso and then we went to see Fernande. Picasso now
never likes to go to Montmartre, he does not like to think about it much
less talk about it. Even to Gertrude Stein he is hesitant about talking of
it, there were things that at that time cut deeply into his Spanish pride
and the end of his Montmartre life was bitterness and disillusion, and
there is nothing more bitter than Spanish disillusion.
But at this time he was in and of Montmartre and lived in the rue
Ravignan.
We went to the Odeon and there got into an omnibus, that is we
mounted on top of an omnibus, the nice old horse-pulled omnibuses that
went pretty quickly and steadily across Paris and up the hill to the place
Blanche. There we got out and climbed a steep street lined with shops
with things to eat, the rue Lepic, and then turning we went around a
corner and climbed even more steeply in fact almost straight up and
came to the rue Ravignan, now place Emile-Goudeau but otherwise
unchanged, with its steps leading up to the little flat square with its few
but tender little trees, a man carpentering in the corner of it, the last
time I was there not very long ago there was still a man carpentering in
a corner of it, and a little cafe just before you went up the steps where
they all used to eat, it is still there, and to the left the low wooden build-
ing of studios that is still there.
We went up the couple of steps and through the open door passing
on our left the studio in which later Juan Gris was to live out his martyr-
dom but where then lived a certain Vaillant, a nondescript painter who
was to lend his studio as a ladies dressing room at the famous banquet
for Rousseau, and then we passed a steep flight of steps leading down
where Max Jacob had a studio a little later, and we passed another steep
little stairway which led to the studio where not long before a young
fellow had committed suicide, Picasso painted one of the most wonder-
ful of his early pictures of the friends gathered round the coffin, we
passed all this to a larger door where Gertrude Stein knocked and Picasso
opened the door and we went in.
He was dressed in what the french call the singe or monkey costume,
MY ARRIVAL IN PARIS 19
overalls made of blue jean or brown, I think his was blue and it is called
a singe or monkey because being all of one piece with a belt, if the belt
is not fastened, and it very often is not, it hangs down behind and so
makes a monkey. His eyes were more wonderful than even I remem-
bered, so full and so brown, and his hands so dark and delicate and alert.
We went further in. There was a couch in one corner, a very small stove
that did for cooking and heating in the other corner, some chairs, the
large broken one Gertrude Stein sat in when she was painted and a
general smell of dog and paint and there was a big dog there and Picasso
moved her about from one place to another exactly as if the dog had
been a large piece of furniture. He asked us to sit down but as all the
chairs were full we all stood up and stood until we left. It was my first
experience of standing but afterwards I found that they all stood that
way for hours. Against the wall was an enormous picture, a strange
picture of light and dark colours, that is all I can say, of a group, an
enormous group and next to it another in a sort of a red brown, of three
women, square and posturing, all of it rather frightening. Picasso and
Gertrude Stein stood together talking. I stood back and looked. I cannot
say I realised anything but I felt that there was something painful and
beautiful there and oppressive but imprisoned. I heard Gertrude Stein
say, and mine. Picasso thereupon brought out a smaller picture, a rather
unfinished thing that could not finish, very pale almost white, two
figures, they were all there but very unfinished and not finishable.
Picasso said, but he will never accept it. Yes, I know, answered Gertrude
Stein. But just the same it is the only one in which it is all there. Yes, I
know, he replied and they fell silent. After that they continued a low
toned conversation and then Miss Stein said, well we have to go, we are
going to have tea with Fernande. Yes, I know, replied Picasso. How
often do you see her, she said, he got very red and looked sheepish. I
have never been there, he said resentfully. She chuckled, well anyway
we are going there, she said, and Miss Toklas is going to have lessons in
french. Ah the Miss Toklas, he said, with small feet like a Spanish
woman and earrings like a gypsy and a father who is king of Poland
like the Poniatowskis, of course she will take lessons. We all laughed
and went to the door. There stood a very beautiful man, oh Agero, said
Picasso, you know the ladies. He looks like a Greco, I said in english.
Picasso caught the name, a false Greco, he said. Oh I forgot to give you
these, said Gertrude Stein handing Picasso a package of newspapers,
20 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
they will console you. He opened them up, they were the Sunday sup-
plement of american papers, they were the Katzenjammer kids. Oh oui,
Oh oui, he said, his face full of satisfaction, merci thanks Gertrude, and
we left.
We left then and continued to climb higher up the hill. What did you
think of what you saw, asked Miss Stein. Well I did see something.
Sure you did, she said, but did you see what it had to do with those two
pictures you sat in front of so long at the vernissage. Only that Picassos
were rather awful and the others were not. Sure, she said, as Pablo once
remarked, when you make a thing, it is so complicated making it that
it is bound to be ugly, but those that do it after you they don't have to
worry about making it and they can make it pretty, and so everybody
can like it when the others make it.
We went on and turned down a little street and there was another
little house and we asked for Mademoiselle Bellevallce and we were sent
into a little corridor and we knocked and went into a moderate sized
room in which was a very large bed and a piano and a little tea table
and Fernande and two others.
One of them was Alice Princet. She was rather a madonna like crea-
ture, with large lovely eyes and charming hair. Fernande afterwards ex-
plained that she was the daughter of a workingman and had the brutal
thumbs that of course were a characteristic of workingmen. She had
been, so Fernande explained, for seven years with Princet who was in
the government employ and she had been faithful to him in the fashion
of Montmartre, that is to say she had stuck to him through sickness and
health but she had amused herself by the way. Now they were to be mar-
ried. Princet had become the head of his small department in the gov-
ernment service and it would be necessary for him to invite other heads
of departments to his house and so of course he must regularise the re-
lation. They were actually married a few months afterward and it was
apropos of this marriage that Max Jacob made his famous remark, it is
wonderful to long for a woman for seven years and to possess her at
last. Picasso made the more practical one, why should they marry simply
in order to divorce. This was a prophecy.
No sooner were they married than Alice Princet met Derain and
Derain met her. It was what the french call un coup de foudre, or love
at first sight. They went quite mad about each other. Princet tried to
MY ARRIVAL IN PARIS 21
bear it but they were married now and it was different. Beside he was
angry for the first time in his life and in his anger he tore up Alice's first
fur coat which she had gotten for the wedding. That settled the matter,
and within six months after the marriage Alice left Princet never to
return. She and Derain went off together and they have never separated
since. I always liked Alice Derain. She had a certain wild quality that
perhaps had to do with her brutal thumbs and was curiously in accord
with her madonna face.
The other woman was Germaine Pichot, entirely a different type.
She was quiet and serious and Spanish, she had the square shoulders
and the unseeing fixed eyes of a Spanish woman. She was very gentle.
She was married to a Spanish painter Pichot, who was rather a won-
derful creature, he was long and thin like one of those primitive Christs
in Spanish churches and when he did a Spanish dance which he did later
at the famous banquet to Rousseau, he was awe inspiringly religious.
Germaine, so Fernande said, was the heroine of many a strange story,
she had once taken a young man to the hospital, he had been injured in
a fracas at a music hall and all his crowd had deserted him. Germaine
quite naturally stood by and saw him through. She had many sisters,
she and all of them had been born and bred in Montmartre and they
were all of different fathers and married to different nationalities, even
to turks and armenians. Germaine, much later was very ill for years and
she always had around her a devoted coterie. They used to carry her in
her armchair to the nearest cinema and they, and she in the armchair, saw
the performance through. They did this regularly once a week. I imagine
they are still doing it.
The conversation around the tea table of Fernande was not lively,
nobody had anything to say. It was a pleasure to meet, it was even an
honour, but that was about all. Fernande complained a little that her
charwoman had not adequately dusted and rinsed the tea things, and
also that buying a bed and a piano on the instalment plan had elements
of unpleasantness. Otherwise we really none of us had much to say.
Finally she and I arranged about the french lessons, I was to pay fifty
cents an hour and she was to come to see me two days hence and we were
to begin. Just at the end of the visit they were more natural. Fernande
asked Miss Stein if she had any of the comic supplements of the american
papers left. Gertrude Stein replied that she had just left them with Pablo.
22 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
Fernanda roused like a lioness defending her cubs. That is a brutality
that I will never forgive him, she said. I met him on the street, he had
a comic supplement in his hand, I asked him to give it to me to help me
to distract myself and he brutally refused. It was a piece of cruelty that
I will never forgive. I ask you, Gertrude, to give to me myself the next
copies you have of the comic supplement. Gertrude Stein said, why cer-
tainly with pleasure.
As we went out she said to me, it is to be hoped that they will be to-
gether again before the next comic supplements of the Katzenjammer
kids come out because if I do not give them to Pablo he will be all upset
and if I do Fernande will make an awful fuss. Well I suppose I will have
to lose them or have my brother give them to Pabjo by mistake.
Fernande came quite promptly to the appointment and we proceeded
to our lesson. Of course to have a lesson in french one has to converse
and Fernande had three subjects, hats, we had not much more to say
about hats, perfumes, we had something to say about perfumes. Per-
fumes were Fernande's really great extravagance, she was the scandal
of Montmartre because she had once bought a bottle of perfume named
Smoke and had paid eighty francs for it at that time sixteen dollars and
it had no scent but such wonderful colour, like real bottled liquid smoke.
Her third subject was the categories of furs. There were three categories
of furs, there were first category, sables, second category ermine and
chinchilla, third category martin fox and squirrel. It was the most sur-
prising thing I had heard in Paris. I was surprised. Chinchilla second,
squirrel called fur and no seal skin.
Our only other conversation was the description and names of the dogs
that were then fashionable. This was my subject and after I had de-
scribed she always hesitated, ah yes, she would say illuminated, you wish
to describe a little bclgian dog whose name is griffon.
There we were, she was very beautiful but it was a little heavy and
monotonous, so I suggested we should meet out of doors, at a tea place
or take walks in Montmartre. That was better. She began to tell me
things. I met Max Jacob. Fernande and he were very funny together.
They felt themselves to be a courtly couple of the first empire, he being
le vieux marquis kissing her hand and paying compliments and she the
Empress Josephine receiving them. It was a caricature but a rather won-
derful one. Then she told me about a mysterious horrible woman called
MY ARRIVAL IN PARIS 23
Marie Laurencin who made noises like an animal and annoyed Picasso.
I thought of her as a horrible old woman and was delighted when I met
the young chic Marie who looked like a Clouet. Max Jacob read my
horoscope. It was a great honour because he wrote it down. I did not
realise it then but I have since and most of all very lately, as all the young
gentlemen who nowadays so much admire Max are so astonished and
impressed that he wrote mine down as he has always been supposed
never to write them but just to say them off hand. Well anyway I have
mine and it is written.
Then she also told me a great many stories about Van Dongen and
his dutch wife and dutch little girl. Van Dongen broke into notoriety
by a portrait he did of Fernande. It was in that way that he created the
type of almond eyes that were later so much the vogue. But Fernande's
almond eyes were natural, for good or for bad everything was natural in
Fernande.
Of course Van Dongen did not admit that this picture was a portrait
of Fernande, although she had sat for it and there was in consequence
much bitterness. Van Dongen in these days was poor, he had a dutch
wife who was a vegetarian and they lived on spinach. Van Dongen fre-
quently escaped from the spinach to a joint in Montmartre where the
girls paid for his dinner and his drinks.
The Van Dongen child was only four years old but terrific. Van
Dongen used to do acrobatics with her and swing her around his head
by a leg. When she hugged Picasso of whom she was very fond she used
almost to destroy him, he had a great fear of her.
There were many other tales of Germaine Pichot and the circus where
she found her lovers and there were tales of all the past and present life
of Montmartre. Fernande herself had one ideal. It was Evelyn Thaw
the heroine of the moment. And Fernande adored her in the way a later
generation adored Mary Pickford, she was so blonde, so pale, so nothing
and Fernande would give a heavy sigh of admiration.
The next time I saw Gertrude Stein she said to me suddenly, is
Fernande wearing her earrings. I do not know, I said. Well notice, she
said. The next time I saw Gertrude Stein I said, yes Fernande is wear-
ing her earrings. Oh well, she said, there is nothing to be done yet, it's
a nuisance because Pablo naturally having nobody in the studio cannot
stay at home. In another week I was able to announce that Fernande was
24 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
not wearing her earrings. Oh well it's alright then she has no more
money left and it is all over, said Gertrude Stein. And it was. A week
later I was dining with Fernande and Pablo at the rue de Fleurus,
I gave Fernande a chinese gown from San Francisco and Pablo gave
'me a lovely drawing.
And now I will tell you how two americans happened to be in the
heart of an art movement of which the outside world at that time knew
nothing.
3 Gertrude Stein in Paris-! 903-1 907
During Gertrude Stein's last two years at the Medical School, Johns
Hopkins, Baltimore, 1900-1903, her brother was living in Florence.
There he heard of a painter named Cezanne and saw paintings by him
owned by Charles Loeser. When he and his sister made their home in
Paris the following year they went to Vollard's the only picture dealer
who had Cezannes for sale, to look at them.
Vollard was a huge dark man who lisped a little. His shop was on the
rue Laffitte not far from the boulevard. Further along this short street
was Durand-Ruel and still further on almost at the church of the
Martyrs was Sagot the ex-clown. Higher up in Montmartre on the rue
Victor-Masse was Mademoiselle Weill who sold a mixture of pictures,
books and bric-a-brac and in entirely another part of Paris on the rue
Faubourg-Saint-Honore was the ex-cafe keeper and photographer
Druet. Also on the rue Laffitte was the confectioner Fouquet where one
could console oneself with delicious honey cakes and nut candies and
once in a while instead of a picture buy oneself strawberry jam in a glass
bowl.
The first visit to Vollard has left an indelible impression on Gertrude
Stein. It was an incredible place. It did not look like a picture gallery.
Inside there were a couple of canvases turned to the wall, in one corner
was a small pile of big and little canvases thrown pell mell on top of one
another, in the centre of the room stood a huge dark man glooming.
This was Vollard cheerful. When he was really cheerless he put his huge
frame against the glass door that led to the street, his arms above his
head, his hands on each upper corner of the portal and gloomed darkly
into the street. Nobody thought then of trying to come in.
They asked to see Cezannes. He looked less gloomy and became quite
polite. As they found out afterward Cezanne was the great romance of
Vollard's life. The name Cezanne was to him a magic word. He had first
learned about Cezanne from Pissarro the painter. Pissarro indeed was
25
26 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
the man from whom all the early Cezanne lovers heard about Cezanne.
Cezanne 'at that time was living gloomy and embittered at Aix-en-
Provence. Pissarro told Vollard about him, told Fabry, a Florentine, who
told Loeser, told Picabia, in fact told everybody who knew about
Cezanne at that time.
There were Cezannes to be seen at Vollard's. Later on Gertrude Stein
wrote a poem called Vollard and Cezanne, and Henry McBride printed
it in the New York Sun. This was the first fugitive piece of Gertrude
Stein's to be so printed and it gave both her and Vollard a great deal of
pleasure. Later on when Vollard wrote his book about Cezanne, Vollard
at Gertrude Stein's suggestion sent a copy of the "book to Henry Mc-
Bride. She told Vollard that a whole page of one of New York's big daily
papers would be devoted to his book. He did not believe it possible, noth-
ing like that had ever happened to anybody in Paris. It did happen and
he was deeply moved and unspeakably content. But to return to that
first visit.
They told Monsieur Vollard they wanted to see some Cezanne land-
scapes, they had been sent to him by Mr. Loeser of Florence. Oh yes,
said Vollard looking quite cheerful and he began moving about the
room, finally he disappeared behind a partition in the back and was
heard heavily mounting the steps. After a quite long wait he came
down again and had in his hand a tiny picture of an apple with most
of the canvas unpainted. They all looked at this thoroughly, then they
said, yes but you see what we wanted to see was a landscape. Ah yes,
sighed Vollard and he looked even more cheerful, after a moment he
again disappeared and this time came back with a painting of a back,
it was a beautiful painting there is no doubt about that but the brother
and sister were not yet up to a full appreciation of Cezanne nudes and
so they returned to the attack. They wanted to see a landscape. This
time after even a longer wait he came back with a very large canvas and
a very little fragment of a landscape painted on it. Yes that was it, they
said, a landscape but what they wanted was a smaller canvas but one all
covered. They said, they thought they would like to see one like that.
By this time the early winter evening of Paris was closing in and just
at this moment a very aged charwoman came down the same back stairs,
mumbled, bon soir monsieur et madame, and quietly went out of the
door, after a moment another old charwoman came down the same
stairs, murmured, bon soir messieurs et mesdames and went quietly put
GERTRUDE STEIN IN PARIS 27
of the door* Gertrude Stein began to laugh and said to her brother, it
is all nonsense, there is no Cezanne. Vollard goes upstairs and tells these
old women what to paint and he does not understand us and they do
not understand him and they paint something and he brings it down
and it is a Cezanne. They both began to laugh uncontrollably. Then
they recovered and once more explained about the landscape. They said
what they wanted was one of those marvellously yellow sunny Aix land-
scapes of which Loeser had several examples. Once more Vollard went
off and this time he came back with a wonderful small green landscape.
It was lovely, it covered all the canvas, it did not cost much and they
bought it. Later on Vollard explained to every one that he had been
visited by two crazy americans and they laughed and he had been much
annoyed but gradually he found out that when they laughed most they
usually bought something so of course he waited for them to laugh.
From that time on they went to Vollard's all the time. They had soon
the privilege of upsetting his piles of canvases and finding what they
liked in the heap. They bought a tiny little Daumier, head of an old
woman. They began to take an interest in Cezanne nudes and they
finally bought two tiny canvases of nude groups. They found a very
very small Manet painted in black and white with Forain in the fore-
ground and bought it, they found two tiny little Renoirs. They fre-
quently bought in twos because one of them usually liked one more than
the other one did, and so the year wore on. In the spring Vollard an-
nounced a show of Gauguin and they for the first time saw some
Gauguins. They were rather awful but they finally liked them, and
bought two Gauguins. Gertrude Stein liked his sun-flowers but not his
figures and her brother preferred the figures. It sounds like a great deal
now but in those days these things did not cost much. And so the winter
went on.
There were not a great many people in and out of Vollard's but once
Gertrude Stein heard a conversation there that pleased her immensely.
Duret was a well known figure in Paris. He was now a very old and a
very handsome man. He had been a friend of Whistler, Whistler had
painted him in evening clothes with a white opera cloak over his arm.
He was at Vollard's talking to a group of younger men and one of them
Roussel, one of the Vuillard, Bonnard, the post impressionist group,
said something complainingly about the lack of recognition of himself
and his friends, that they were not even allowed to show in the salon.
28 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
Duret looked, at him kindly, my young friend, he said, there are two
kinds of art, never forget this, there is art and there is official art. How
can you, my poor young friend, hope to be official art. Just look at your-
self. Supposing an important personage came to France, and wanted to
meet the representative painters and have his portrait painted. My dear
young friend, just look at yourself, the very sight of you would terrify
him. You are a nice young man, gentle and intelligent, but to the im-
portant personage you would not seem so, you would be terrible. No
they need as representative painter a medium sized, slightly stout man,
not too well dressed but dressed in the fashion of his class, neither bald
or well brushed hair and a respectful bow with it. You can see that you
would not do. So never say another word about official recognition, or if
you do look in the mirror and think of important personages. No, my
dear young friend there is art and there is official art, there always has
been and there always will be.
Before the winter was over, having gone so far Gertrude Stein and
her brother decided to go further, they decided to buy a big Cezanne
and then they would stop. After that they would be reasonable. They
convinced their elder brother that this last outlay was necessary, and it
was necessary as will soon be evident. They told Vollard that they
wanted to buy a Cezanne portrait. In those days practically no big
Cezanne portraits had been sold. Vollard owned almost all of them. He
was enormously pleased with this decision. They now were introduced
into the room above the steps behind the partition where Gertrude Stein
had been sure the old charwoman painted the Cezannes and there they
spent days deciding which portrait they would have. There were about
eight to choose from and the decision was difficult. They had often to go
and refresh themselves with honey cakes at Fouquet's. Finally they nar-
rowed the choice down to two, a portrait of a man and a portrait of a
woman, but this time they could not afford to buy twos and finally they
chose the portrait of the woman.
Vollard said of course ordinarily a portrait of a woman always is more
expensive than a portrait of a man but, said he looking at the picture
very carefully, I suppose with Cezanne it does not make any difference.
They put it in a cab and they went home with it. It was this picture that
Alfy Maurer used to explain was finished and that you could tell that it
was finished because it had a frame.
GERTRUDE STEIN IN PARIS 29
It was an important purchase because in looking and looking at this
picture Gertrude Stein wrote Three Lives.
She had begun not long before as an exercise in literature to translate
Flaubert's Trois Contes and then she had this Cezanne and she looked
at it and under its stimulus she wrote Three Lives.
The next thing that happened was in the autumn. It was the first year
of the autumn salon, the first autumn salon that had ever existed in Paris
and they, very eager and. excited, went to see it. There they found
Matisse's picture afterwards known as La Femme au Chapeau.
This first autumn salon was a step in official recognition of the out-
laws of the independent salon. Their pictures were to be shown in the
Petit Palais opposite the Grand Palais where the great spring salon was
held. That is, those outlaws were to be shown there who had succeeded
enough so that they began to be sold in important picture shops. These
in collaboration with some rebels from the old salons had created the
autumn salon.
The show had a great deal of freshness and was not alarming. There
were a number of attractive pictures but there was one that was not at-
tractive. It infuriated the public, they tried to scratch off the paint.
Gertrude Stein liked that picture, it was a portrait of a woman with a
long face and a fan. It was very strange in its colour and in its anatomy.
She said she wanted to buy it. Her brother had in the meantime found
a white-clothed woman on a green lawn and he wanted to buy it. So as
usual they decided to buy two and they went to the office of the secretary
of the salon to find out about prices. They had never been in the little
room of a secretary of a salon and it was very exciting. The secretary
looked up the prices in his catalogue. Gertrude Stein has forgotten how
much and even whose it was, the white dress and dog on the green grass,
but the Matisse was five hundred francs. The secretary explained that
of course one never paid what the artist asked, one suggested a price.
They asked what price they should suggest. He asked them what they
were willing to pay. They said they did not know. He suggested that
they offer four hundred and he would let them know. They agreed and
left.
The next day they received word from the secretary that Monsieur
Matisse had refused to accept the offer and what did they want to do.
They decided to go over to the salon and look at the picture again. They
30 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
did. People were roaring with laughter at the picture and scratching
at it. Gertrude Stein could not understand why, the picture seemed to
her perfectly natural. The Cezanne portrait had not seemed natural, it
had taken her some time to feel that it was natural but this picture by
Matisse seemed perfectly natural and she could not understand why it
infuriated everybody. Her brother was less attracted but all the same he
agreed and they bought it. She then went back to look at it and it upset
her to see them all mocking at it. It bothered her and angered her be-
cause she did not understand why because to her it was so alright, just
as later she did not understand why since the writing was all so' clear
and natural they mocked at and were enraged by her work.
And so this was the story of the buying of La Femme au Chapeau by
the buyers and now for the story from the seller's point of view as told
some months after by Monsieur and Madame Matisse. Shortly after the
purchase of the picture they all asked to meet each other. Whether
Matisse wrote and asked or whether they wrote and asked Gertrude
Stein does not remember. Anyway in no time they were knowing each
other and knowing each other very well.
The Matisses lived on the quay just off the boulevard Saint-Michel.
They were on the top floor in a small three-roomed apartment with a
lovely view over Notre Dame and the river. Matisse painted it in winter.
You went up and up the steps. In those days you were always going up
stairs and down stairs. Mildred Aldrich had a distressing way of drop-
ping her key down the middle of the stairs where an elevator might
have been, in calling out goodbye to some one below, from her sixth
story, and then you or she had to go all the way up or all the way down
again. To be sure she would often call out, never mind, I am bursting
open my door. Only americans did that. The keys were heavy and you
either forgot them or dropped them. Sayen at the end of a Paris summer
when he was congratulated on looking so well and sun-burned, said, yes
it comes from going up and down stairs.
Madame Matisse was an admirable housekeeper. Her place was small
but immaculate. She kept the house in order, she was an excellent cook
and provider, she posed for all of Matisse's pictures. It was she who was
La Femme au Chapeau, lady with a hat. She had kept a little millinery
shop to keep them going in their poorest days. She was a very straight
dark woman with a long face and a firm large loosely hung mouth like
a horse. She had an abundance of dark hair. Gertrude Stein always liked
GERTRUDE STEIN IN PARIS 31
the way she pinned her hat to her head and Matisse once made a draw-
ing of his wife making this characteristic gesture and gave it & Miss
Stein. She always wore black. She always placed a large black hat-pin
well in the middle of the hat and the middle of the top of her head and
then with a large firm gesture, down it came. They had with them a
daughter of Matisse, a daughter he had had before his marriage and
who had had diphtheria and had had to have an operation and for many
years had to wear a black ribbon around her throat with a silver button.
This Matisse put into many of his pictures. The girl was exactly like her
father and Madame Matisse, as she once explained in her melodramatic
simple way, did more than her duty by this child because having read
in her youth a novel in which the heroine had done so and been conse-
quently much loved all her life, had decided to do the same. She herself
had had two boys but they were neither of them at that time living with
them. The younger Pierre was in the south of France on the borders of
Spain with Madame Matisse's father and mother, and the elder Jean
with Monsieur Matisse's father and mother in the north of France on
the borders of Belgium.
Matisse had an astonishing virility that always gave one an extraor-
dinary pleasure when one had not seen him for some time. Less the first
time of seeing him than later. And one did not lose the pleasure of this
virility all the time he was with one. But there was not much feeling
of life in this virility. Madame Matisse was very different, there was a
very profound feeling of life in her for any one who knew hef .
Matisse had at this time a small Cezanne and a small Gauguin and
he said he needed them both. The Cezanne had been bought with his^
wife's marriage portion, the Gauguin with the ring which was the only
jewel she had ever owned. And they were happy because he needed these
two pictures. The Cezanne was a picture of bathers and a tent, the
Gauguin the head of a boy. Later on in life when Matisse became a very
rich man, he kept on buying pictures. He said he knew about pictures
and had confidence in them and he did not know about other things.
And so for his own pleasure and as the best legacy to leave his children
he bought Cezannes. Picasso also later when he became rich bought pic-
tures but they were his own. He too believed in pictures and wants to
leave the best legacy he can to his son and so keeps and buys his own.
The Matisses had had a hard time. Matisse had come to Paris as a
young man to study pharmacy. His people were small grain merchants
32 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
in the north qf France. He had become interested in painting, had begun
copying the Poussins at the Louvre and become a painter fairly without
the consent of his people who however continued to allow him the very
small monthly sum he had had as a student. His daughter was born at
this time and this further complicated his life. He had at first a certain
amount of success. He married. Under the influence of the paintings of
Poussin and Chardin he had painted still life pictures that had consider-
able success at the Champ-de-Mars salon, one of the two big spring
salons. And then he fell under the influence of Cezanne, and then under
the influence of negro sculpture. All this developed the Matisse of the
period of La Femme au Chapeau. The year after his very considerable
success at the salon he spent the winter painting a very large picture of
a woman setting a table and on the table was a magnificent dish of fruit.
It had strained the resources of the Matisse family to buy this fruit, fruit
was horribly dear in Paris in those days, even ordinary fruit, imagine
how much dearer was this very extraordinary fruit and it had to keep
until the picture was completed and the picture was going to take a
long time. In order to keep it as long as possible they kept the room as
cold as posible, and that under the roof and in a Paris winter was not
difficult, and Matisse painted in an overcoat and gloves and he painted
at it all winter. It was finished at last and sent to the salon where the
year before Matisse had had considerable success, and there it was re-
fused. And now Matisse's serious troubles began, his daughter was very
ill, he was in an agonising mental struggle concerning his work, and he
had lost all posibility of showing his pictures. He no longer painted at
home but in an atelier. It was cheaper so. Every morning he painted,
every afternoon he worked at his sculpture, late every afternoon he drew
in the sketch classes from the nude, and every evening he played his
violin. These were very dark days and he was very despairful. His wife
opened a small millinery shop and they managed to live. The two boys
were sent away to the country to his and her people and they continued
to live. The only encouragement came in the atelier where he worked
and where a crowd of young men began to gather around him and be
influenced by him. Among these the best known at that time was
Manguin, the best known now Derain. Derain was a very young man
at that time, he enormously admired Matisse, he went away to the coun-
try with them to Collioure near Perpignan, and he was a great comfort
to them all. He began to paint landscapes outlining his trees with red
GERTRUDE STEIN IN PARIS 33
and he had a sense of space that was quite his own and which first
showed itself in a landscape of a cart going up a road bordered with trees
lined in red. His paintings were coming to be known at the independent.
Matisse worked every day and every day and every day and he worked
terribly hard. Once Vollard came to see him. Matisse used to love to tell
the story. I have often heard him tell it. Vollard came and said he wanted
to see the big picture which had been refused. Matisse showed it to him.
He did not look at it. He talked to Madame Matisse and mostly about
cooking, he liked cooking and eating as a frenchman should, and so did
she. Matisse and Madame Matisse were both getting very nervous al-
though she did not show it. And this door, said Vollard interestedly to
Matisse, where does that lead to, does that lead into a court or does that
lead on to a stairway. Into a court, said Matisse. Ah yes, said Vollard.
And then he left.
The Matisses spent days discussing whether there was anything sym-
bolic in Vollard's question or was it idle curiosity. Vollard never had
any idle curiosity, he always wanted to know what everybody thought
of everything because in that way he found out what he himself thought.
This was very well known and therefore the Matisses asked each other
and all their friends, why did he ask that question about that door. Well
at any rate within the year he had bought the picture at a very low price
but he bought it, and he put it away and nobody saw it, and that was
the end of that.
From this time on things went neither better nor worse for Matisse
and he was discouraged and aggressive. Then came the first autumn
salon and he was asked to exhibit and he sent La Femme au Chapeau and
it was hung. It was derided and attacked and it was sold.
Matisse was at this time about thirty-five years old, he was de-
pressed. Having gone to the opening day of the salon and heard what
was said of his picture and seen what they were trying to do to it he
never went again. His wife went alone. He stayed at home and was
unhappy. This is the way Madame Matisse used to tell the story.
Then a note came from the secretary of the salon saying that there had
been an offer made for the picture, an offer of four hundred francs.
Matisse was painting Madame Matisse as a gypsy holding a guitar. This
guitar had already had a history. Madame Matisse was very fond of tell-
ing the story. She had a great deal to do and she posed beside and she
was very healthy and sleepy. One day she was posing, he was painting,
34 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
she began to nod and as she nodded the guitar made noises. Stop it, said
Matisse, wake up. She woke up, he painted, she nodded and the guitar
made noises. Stop it, said Matisse, wake up. She woke up and then in
a little while she nodded again the guitar made even more noises. Matisse
furious seized the guitar and broke it. And added Madame Matisse rue-
fully, we were very hard up then and we had to have it mended so he
could go on with the picture. She was holding this same mended guitar
and posing when the note from the secretary of the autumn salon came.
Matisse was joyful, of course I will accept, said Matisse. Oh no, said
Madame Matisse, if those people (ces gens) are interested enough to
make an offer they are interested enough to pay the price you asked, and
she added, the difference would make winter clothes'for Margot. Matisse
hesitated but was finally convinced and they sent a note saying he wanted
his price. Nothing happened and Matisse was in a terrible state and very
reproachful and then in a day or two when Madame Matisse was once
more posing with the guitar and Matisse was painting, Margot brought
them a little blue telegram. Matisse opened it and he made a grimace.
Madame Matisse was terrified, she thought the worst had happened.
The guitar fell. What is it, she said. They have bought it, he said. Why
do you make such a face of agony and frighten me so and perhaps break
the guitar, she said. I was winking at you, he said, to tell you, because
I was so moved I could not speak.
And so, Madame Matisse used to end up the story triumphantly, you
see it was I, and I was right to insist upon the original price, and
Mademoiselle Gertrude, who insisted upon buying it, who arranged the
whole matter.
The friendship with the Matisses grew apace. Matisse at that time was
at work at his first big decoration, Le Bonheur de Vivre. He was making
small and larger and very large studies for it. It was in this picture that
Matisse first clearly realised his intention of deforming the drawing of
the human body in order to harmonise and intensify the colour values
of all the simple colours mixed only with white. He used his distorted
drawing as a dissonance is used in music or as vinegar or lemons are
used in cooking or egg shells in coffee to clarify. I do inevitably take my
comparisons from the kitchen because I like food and cooking and know
something about it. However this was the idea. Cezanne had come to his
unfinishedness and distortion of necessity, Matisse did it by intention.
Little by little people began to come to the rue de Fleurus to see the
GERTRUDE STEIN IN PARIS 35
Matisses and the Cezannes, Matisse brought people, everybody brought
somebody, and they came at any time and it began to be a nuisance, and
it was in this way that Saturday evenings began. It was also at this time
that Gertrude Stein got into the habit of writing at night. It was only
after eleven o'clock that she could be sure that no one would knock at
the studio door. She was at that time planning her long book, The Mak-
ing of Americans, she was struggling with her sentences, those long
sentences that had to be so exactly carried out. Sentences not only words
but sentences and always sentences have been Gertrude Stein's life long
passion. And so she had then and indeed it lasted pretty well to the war,
which broke down so many habits, she had then the habit of beginning
her work at eleven o'clock at night and working until the dawn. She
said she always tried to stop before the dawn was too clear and the birds
were too lively because it is a disagreeable sensation to go to bed then.
There were birds in, many trees behind high walls in those days, now
there are fewer. But often the birds and the dawn caught her and she
stood in the court waiting to get used to it before she went to bed. She
had the habit then of sleeping until noon and the beating of the rugs
into the court, because everybody did that in those days, even her house-
hold did, was one of her most poignant irritations.
So the Saturday evenings began.
Gertrude Stein and her brother were often at the Matisses and the
Matisses were constantly with them. Madame Matisse occasionally gave
them a lunch, this happened most often when some relation sent the
Matisses a hare. Jugged hare prepared by Madame Matisse in the fash-
ion of Perpignan was something quite apart. They also had extremely
good wine, a little heavy, but excellent. They also had a sort of Madeira
called Roncio which was very good indeed. Maillol the sculptor came
from the same part of France as Madame Matisse and once when I met
him at Jo Davidson's, many years later, he told me about all these wines.
He then told me how he had lived well in his student days in Paris for
fifty francs a month. To be sure, he said, the family sent me homemade
bread every week and when' I came I brought enough wine with me to
last a year and I sent my washing home every month.
Derain was present at one of these lunches in those early days. He
and Gertrude Stein disagreed violently. They discussed philosophy, he
basing his ideas on having read the second part of Faust in a french
translation while he was doing his military service. They never became
36 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
friends. Gertrude Stein was never interested in his work. He had a sense
of space but for her his pictures had neither life nor depth nor solidity.
They rarely saw each other after. Derain at that time was constantly
with the Matisses and was of all Matisse's friends the one Madame
Matisse liked the best.
It was about this time that Gertrude Stein's brother happened one
day to find the picture gallery of Sagot, an ex-circus clown who had a
picture shop further up the rue Laffitte. Here he, Gertrude Stein's
brother, found the paintings of two young Spaniards, one, whose name
everybody has forgotten, the other one, Picasso. The work of both of
them interested him and he bought a water colour by the forgotten one,
a cafe scene. Sagot also sent him to a little furniture store where there
were some paintings being shown by Picasso. Gertrude Stein's brother
was interested and wanted to buy one and asked the price but the price
asked was almost as expensive as Cezanne. He went back to Sagot and
told him. Sagot laughed. He said, that is alright, come back in a few
days and I will have a big one. In a few days he did have a big one and
it was very cheap. When Gertrude Stein and Picasso tell about those
days they are not always in agreement as to what happened but I think
in this case they agree that the price asked was a hundred and fifty
francs. The picture was the now well known painting of a nude girl
with a basket of red flowers.
Gertrude Stein did not like the picture, she found something rather
appalling in the drawing of the legs and feet, something that repelled
and shocked her. She and her brother almost quarrelled about this pic-
ture. He wanted it and she did not want it in the house. Sagot gathering
a little of the discussion said, but that is alright if you do not like the
legs and feet it is very easy to guillotine her and only take the head. No
that would not do, everybody agreed, and nothing was decided.
Gertrude Stein and her brother continued to be very divided in this
matter and they were very angry with each other. Finally it was agreed
that since he, the brother, wanted it so badly they would buy it, and in
this way the first Picasso was brought into the rue de Fleurus.
It was just about this time that Raymond Duncan, the brother of
Isadora, rented an atelier in the rue de Fleurus. Raymond had just
come back from his first trip to Greece and had brought back with him
a greek girl and greek clothes. Raymond had known Gertrude Stein's
elder brother and his wife in San Francisco. At that time Raymond was
GERTRUDE STEIN IN PARIS 37
acting as advance agent for Emma Nevada who had also with her
Pablo Casals the violincellist, at that time quite unknown.
The Duncan family had been then at the Omar Khayam stage, they
had not yet gone greek. They had after that gone italian renaissance,
but now Raymond had gone completely greek and this included a greek
girl. Isadora lost interest in him, she found the girl too modern a greek.
At any rate Raymond was at this time without any money at all and his
wife was enceinte. Gertrude Stein gave him coal and a chair for Penel-
ope to sit in, the rest sat on packing cases. They had another friend who
helped them, Kathleen Bruce, a very beautiful, very athletic English
girl, a kind of sculptress, she later married and became the widow of the
discoverer of the South Pole, Scott. She had at that time no money to
speak of either and she used to bring a half portion of her dinner every
evening for Penelope. Finally Penelope had her baby, it was named Ray-
mond because when Gertrude Stein's brother and Raymond Duncan
went to register it they had not thought of a name. Now he is against
his will called Menalkas but he might be gratified if he knew that legally
he is Raymond. However that is another matter.
Kathleen Bruce was a sculptress and she was learning to model figures
of children and she asked to do a figure of Gertrude Stein's nephew.
Gertrude Stein and her nephew went to Kathleen Bruce's studio. There
they, one afternoon, met H. P. Roche. Roche was one of those characters
that are always to be found in Paris. He was a very earnest, very noble,
devoted, very faithful and very enthusiastic man who was a general
introducer. He knew everybody, he really knew them and he could in-
troduce anybody to anybody. He was going to be a writer. He was tall
and red-headed and he never said anything but good good excellent
and he lived with his mother and his grandmother. He had done a
great many things, he had gone to the austrian mountains with the aus-r
trians, he had gone to Germany with the germans and he had gone to
Hungary with hungarians and he had gone to England with the eng-
lish. He had not gone to Russia although he had been in Paris with
russians. As Picasso always said of him, Roche is very nice but he is only
a translation.
Later he .was often at 27 rue de Fleurus with various nationalities and
Gertrude Stein rather liked him. She always said of him he is so faithful,
perhaps one need never see him again but one knows that somewhere
Roche is faithful. He did give her one delightful sensation in the very
38 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
early days of their acquaintance. Three Lives, Gertrude Stein's first book
was just then being written and Roche who could read english was very
impressed by it. One day Gertrude Stein was saying something about
herself and Roche said good good excellent that is very important for
your biography. She was terribly touched, it was the first time that she
really realised that some time she would have a biography. It is quite
true that although she has not seen him for years somewhere Roche is
probably perfectly faithful.
But to come back to Roche at Kathleen Bruce's studio. They all talked
about one thing and another and Gertrude Stein happened to mention
that they had just bought a picture from Sagot by a young Spaniard
named Picasso. Good good excellent, said Roche, he is a very interesting
young fellow, I know him. Oh do you, said Gertrude Stein, well enough
to take somebody to see him. Why certainly, said Roche. Very well, said
Gertrude Stein, my brother I know is very anxious to make his acquaint-
ance. And there and then the appointment was made and shortly after
Roche and Gertrude Stein's brother went to see Picasso.
It was only a very short time after this that Picasso began the portrait
of Gertrude Stein, now so widely known, but just how that came about
is a little vague in everybody's mind. I have heard Picasso and Gertrude
Stein talk about it often and they neither of them can remember. They
can remember the first time that Picasso dined at the rue de Fleurus and
they can remember the first time Gertrude Stein posed for her portrait
at rue Ravignan but in between there is a blank. How it came about
they do not know. Picasso had never had anybody pose for him since he
was sixteen years old, he was then twenty-four and Gertrude Stein had
never thought of having her portrait painted, and they do not either of
them know how it came about. Anyway it did and she posed to him for
this portrait ninety times and a great deal happened during that time.
To go back to all the first times.
Picasso and Fernande came to dinner, Picasso in those days was, what
a dear friend and schoolmate of mine, Nellie Jacot, called, a good-look-
ing bootblack. He was thin dark, alive with big pools of eyes and a
violent but not rough way. He was sitting next to Gertrude Stein at
dinner and she took up a piece of bread. This, said Picasso, snatching it
back with violence, this piece of bread is mine. She laughed and he
looked sheepish. That was the beginning of their intimacy.
That evening Gertrude Stein's brother took out portfolio after port-
GERTRUDE STEIN IN PARIS 39
folio of Japanese prints to show Picasso, Gertrude Stein's brother was
fond of Japanese prints. Picasso solemnly and obediently looked at print
after print and listened to the descriptions. He said under his breath to
Gertrude Stein, he is very nice, your brother, but like all americans, like
Haviland, he shows you Japanese prints. Moi j'aime pas 93, no I don't
care for it. As I say Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso immediately
understood each other.
Then there was the first time of posing. The atelier of Picasso I have
already described. In those days there was even more disorder, more
coming and going, more red-hot fire in the stove, more cooking and
more interruptions. There was a large broken armchair where Gertrude
Stein posed. There was a couch where everybody sat and slept. There
was a little kitchen chair upon which Picasso sat to paint, there was a
large easel and there were many very large canvases. It was at the
height of the end of the Harlequin period when the canvases were
enormous, the figures also, and the groups.
There was a little fox terrier there that had something the matter
with it and had been and was again about to be taken to the veterinary.
No frenchman or frenchwoman is so poor or so careless or so avaricious
but that they can and do constantly take their pet to the vet.
Fernande was as always, very large, very beautiful and very gracious.
She offered to read La Fontaine's stories aloud to amuse Gertrude Stein
while Gertrude Stein posed. She took her pose, Picasso sat very tight on
his chair and very close to his canvas and on a very small palette which
was of a uniform brown grey colour, mixed some more brown grey and
the painting .began. This was the first of some eighty or ninety sittings.
Toward the end of the afternoon Gertrude Stein's two brothers and
her sister-in-law and Andrew Green came to see. They were all excited
at the beauty of the sketch and Andrew Green begged and begged that
it should be left as it was. But Picasso shook his head and said, non.
It is too bad but in those days no one thought of taking a photograph
of the picture as it was then and of course no one of the group that saw
it then remembers at all what it looked like any more than do Picasso
or Gertrude Stein.
Andrew Green, none of them knew how they had met Andrew Green,
he was the great-nephew of Andrew Green known as the father of
Greater New York. He had been born and reared in Chicago but he was
a typical tall gaunt new englander, blond and gentle. He had a prodi-
40 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
gious memory and could recite all of Milton's Paradise Lost by heart
and also all the translations of chinese poems of which Gertrude Stein
was very fond. He had been in China and he was later to live perma-
nently in the South Sea islands after he finally inherited quite a fortune
from his great-uncle who was fond of Milton's Paradise Lost. He had a
passion for oriental stuffs. He adored as he said a simple centre and a
continuous design. He loved pictures in museums and he hated every-
thing modern. Once when during the family's absence he had stayed at
the rue de Fleurus for a month, he had outraged Helene's feelings by
having his bed-sheets changed every day and covering all the pictures
with cashmere shawls. He said the pictures were very restful, he could
not deny that, but he could not bear it. He said that after the month was
over that he had of course never come to like the new pictures but the
worst of it was that not liking them he had lost his taste for the old
and he never again in his life could go to any museum or look at any
picture. He was tremendously impressed by Fernande's beauty. He was
indeed quite overcome. I would, he said to Gertrude Stein, if I could
talk french, I would make love to her and take her away from that little
Picasso. Do you make love with words, laughed Gertrude Stein. He
went away before I came to Paris and he came back eighteen years later
and he was very dull.
This year was comparatively a quiet one. The Matisses were in the
South of France all winter, at Collioure on the Mediterranean coast not
far from Perpignan, where Madame Matisse's people lived. The Ray-
mond Duncans had disappeared after having been joined first by a
sister of Penelope who was a little actress and was very far from being
dressed greek, she was as nearly as she possibly could be a little Parisian.
She had accompanying her a very large dark greek cousin. He came in
to see Gertrude Stein and he looked around and he announced, I am
greek, that is the same as saying that I have perfect taste and I do not
care for any of these pictures. Very shortly Raymond, his wife and baby,
the sister-in-law and the greek cousin disappeared out of the court at
27 due de Fleurus and were succeeded by a german lady.
This german lady was the niece and god-daughter of german field-
marshals and her brother was a captin in the germany navy. Her mother
was english and she herself had played the harp at the bavarian court.
She was very amusing and had some strange friends, both english and
french. She was a sculptress and she made a typical german sculpture of
GERTRUDE STEIN IN PARIS 4!
little Roger, the concierge's boy. She made three heads of him, one
laughing, one crying and one sticking out his tongue, all three together
on one pedestal. She sold this piece to the royal museum at Potsdam.
The concierge during the war often wept at the thought of her Roger
being there, sculptured, in the museum at Potsdam. She invented clothes
that could be worn inside out and taken to pieces and be made long or
short and she showed these to everybody with great pride. She had as
an instructor in painting a weird looking frenchman one who looked
exactly like the pictures of Huckleberry Finn's father. She explained
that she employed him out of charity, he had won a gold medal at the
salon in his youth and after that had had no success. She also said that
she never employed a servant of the servant class. She said that decayed
gentlewomen were more appetising and more efficient and she always
had some widow of some army officer or functionary sewing or posing
for her. She had an austrian maid for a while who cooked perfectly
delicious austrian pastry but she did not keep her long. She was in short
very amusing and she and Gertrude Stein used to talk to each other in
the court. She always wanted to know what Gertrude Stein thought of
everybody who came in and out. She wanted to know if she came to her
conclusions by deduction, observation, imagination or analysis. She was
amusing and then she disappeared and nobody thought anything about
her until the war came and then everybody wondered if after all there
had not been something sinister about this german woman's life in
Paris.
Practically every afternoon Gertrude Stein went to Montmartre, posed
and then later wandered down the hill usually walking across Paris to
the rue de Flcurus. She then formed the habit which has never left her
of walking around Paris, now accompanied by the dog, in those days
alone. And Saturday evenings the Picassos walked home with her and
dined and then there was Saturday evening.
During these long poses and these long walks Gertrude Stein medi-
tated and made sentences. She was then in the middle of her negro story
Melanctha Herbert, the second story of Three Lives and the poignant
incidents that she wove into the life of Melanctha were often these she
noticed in walking down the hill from the rue Ravignan.
It was at that time that the hungarians began their pilgrimages to
the rue de Fleurus. There were strange groups of americans then,
Picasso unaccustomed to the vipginal quality of these young men and
42 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
women used to say of them, ils sont pas des hommes, ils sont pas des
femmes, ils sont des americains. They are not men, they are not women,
they are americans. Once there was a Bryn Mawr woman there, wife of
a well known portrait painter, who was very tall and beautiful and hav-
ing once fallen on her head had a strange vacant expression. Her, he
approved of, and used to call the Empress. There was a type of amer-
ican art student, male, that used very much to afflict him, he used to say
no it is not he who will make the future glory of America. He had a
characteristic reaction when he saw the first photograph of a sky-scraper.
Good God, he said, imagine the pangs of jealousy a lover would have
while his beloved came up all those flights of stairs to his top story studio.
It was at this time that a Maurice Denis, a Toulouse-Lautrec and many
enormous Picassos were added to the collectio'n. It was at this time also
that the acquaintance and friendship with the Vallotons began.
Vollard once said when he was asked about a certain painter's picture,
oh $a c'est un Cezanne pour les pauvres, that is a Cezanne for the poor
collector. Well Valloton was a Manet for the impecunious. His big nude
had all the hardness, the stillness and none of the quality of the Olympe
of Manet and his portraits had the aridity but none of the elegance of
David. And further he had the misfortune of having married the sister
of an important picture-dealer. He was very happy with his wife and
she was a very charming woman but then there were the weekly family
reunions, and there was also the wealth of his wife and the violence of
his step-sons. He was a gentle soul, Valloton, with a keen wit and a
great deal of ambition but a feeling of impotence, the result of being the
brother-in-law of picture dealers. However for a time his pictures were
very interesting. He asked Gertrude Stein to pose for him. She did the
following year. She had come to like posing, the long still hours followed
by a long dark walk intensified the concentration with which she was
creating her sentences. The sentences of which Marcel Brion, the french
critic has written, by exactitude, austerity, absence of variety in light and
shade, by refusal of the use of the subconscious Gertrude Stein achieves
a symmetry which has a close analogy to the symmetry of the musical
fugue of Bach.
She often described the strange sensation she had as a result of the
way in which Valloton painted. He was not at that time a young man
as painters go, he had already had considerable recognition as a painter
in the Paris exposition of 1900. When he painted a portrait he made a
GERTRUDE STEIN IN PAFHS 43
crayon sketch and then began painting at the top of the canvas straight
across. Gertrude Stein said it was like pulling down a curtain as slowly
moving as one of his swiss glaciers. Slowly he pulled the curtain down
and by the time he was at the bottom of the canvas, there you were.
The whole operation took about two weeks and then he gave the canvas
to you. First however he exhibited it in the autumn salon and it had con-
siderable notice and everybody was pleased.
Everybody went to the Cirque Medrano once a week, at least, and
usually everybody went on the same evening. There the clowns had
commenced dressing up in misfit clothes instead of the old classic cos-
tume and these clothes later so well known on Charlie Chaplin were the
delight of Picasso and all his friends in Montmartre. There also were
the english jockeys and their costumes made the mode that all Mont-
martre followed. Not very long ago somebody was talking about how
well the young painters of to-day dressed and what a pity it was that
they spent money in that way. Picasso laughed. I am quite certain, he
said, they pay less for the fashionable complet, their suits of clothes,
than we did for our rough and common ones. You have no idea how
hard it was and expensive it was in those days to find english tweed or
a french imitation that would look rough and dirty enough. And it was
quite true one way and another the painters in those days did spend a
lot of money and they spent all they got hold of because in those happy
days you could owe money for years for your paints and canvases and
rent and restaurant and practically everything except coal and luxuries.
The winter went on. Three Lives was written. Gertrude Stein asked
her sister-in-law to come and read it. She did and was deeply moved.
This pleased Gertrude Stein immensely, she did not believe that any one
could read anything she wrote and be interested. In those days she never
asked any one what they thought of her work, but were they interested
enough to read it. Now she says if they can bring themselves to read it
they will be interested.
Her elder brother's wife has always meant a great deal in her life but
never more than on that afternoon. And then it had to be typewritten.
Gertrude Stein had at that time a wretched little portable typewriter
which she never used. She always then and for many years later wrote
on scraps of paper in pencil, copied it into french school note-books in
ink and then often copied it over again in ink. It was in connection with
these various series of scraps of paper that her elder brother once re-
44 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
marked, I do not know whether Gertrude has more genius than the rest
of you all, that I know nothing about, but one thing I have always
noticed, the rest of you paint and write and are not satisfied and throw
it away or tear it up, she does not say whether she is satisfied or not, she
copies it very often but she never throws away any piece of paper upon
which she has written.
Gertrude Stein tried to copy Three Lives on the typewriter but it was
no use, it made her nervous, so Etta Cone came to the rescue. The Miss
Etta Cones as Pablo Picasso used to call her and her sister. Etta Cone
was a Baltimore connection of Gertrude Stein's and she was spending a
winter in Paris. She was rather lonesome and she was rather interested.
Etta Cone found the Picassos appalling but romantic. She was taken
there by Gertrude Stein whenever the Picasso finances got beyond every-
body and was made to buy a hundred francs' worth of drawings. After
all a hundred francs in those days was twenty dollars. She was quite will-
ing to indulge in this romantic charity. Needless to say these drawings
became in very much later years the nucleus of her collection.
Etta Cone offered tp typewrite Three Lives and she began. Baltimore
is famous for the delicate sensibilities and conscientiousness of its inhabit-
ants. It suddenly occurred to Gertrude Stein that she had not told Etta
Cone to read the manuscript before beginning to typewrite it. She went
to see her and there indeed was Etta Cone faithfully copying the manu-
script letter by letter so that she might not by any indiscretion become
conscious of the meaning. Permission to read the text having been given
the typewriting went on.
Spring was coming and the sittings were coming to an end. All of a
sudden one day Picasso painted out the whole head. I can't see you any
longer when I look, he said irritably. And so the picture was left like
that.
Nobody remembers being particularly disappointed or particularly an-
noyed at this ending to the long series of posings. There was the spring
independent and then Gertrude Stein and her brother were going, to
Italy as was at that time their habit. Pablo and Fernande were going to
Spain, she for the first time, and she had to buy a dress and a hat and
perfumes and a cooking stove. All french women in those days when
they went from one country to another took along a french oil stove to
cook on. Perhaps they still do. No matter where they were going this
had to be taken with them. They always paid a great deal of excess bag-
GERTRUDE STEIN IN PARIS 45
gage, all french women who went travelling. And the Matisses were
back and they had to meet the Picassos and to be enthusiastic about each
other, but not to like each other very well. And in their wake, Derain
met Picasso and with him came Braque.
It may seem very strange to every one nowadays that before this time
Matisse had never heard of Picasso and Picasso had never met Matisse.
But at that time every little crowd lived its own life and knew practically
nothing of any other crowd. Matisse on the Quai Saint-Michel and in
the independant did not know anything of Picasso and Montmartre and
Sagot. They all, it is true, had been in the very early stages bought one
after the other by Mademoiselle Weill, the bric-a-brac shop in Mont-
martre, but as she bought everybody's pictures, pictures brought by any
one, not necessarily by the painter, it was not very likely that any painter
would, except by some rare chance, see there the paintings of any other
painter. They were however all very grateful to her in later years because
after all practically everybody who later became famous had sold their
first little picture to her.
As I was saying the sittings were over, the vernissage of the inde-
pendent was over and everybody went away.
It had been a fruitful winter. In the long struggle with the portrait of
Gertrude Stein, Picasso passed from the Harlequin, the charming early
Italian period to the intensive struggle which was to end in cubism.
Gertrude Stein had written the story of Melanctha the negress, the sec-
ond story of Three Lives which was the first definite step away from
the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century in literature.
Matisse had painted the Bonheur de Vivre and had created the new
school of colour which was soon to leave its mark on everything. And
everybody went away. That summer the Matisses came to Italy. Matisse
did not care about it very much, he preferred France and Morocco but
Madame Matisse was deeply touched. It was a girlish dream fulfilled.
She said, I say to myself all the time, I am in Italy. And I say it to Henri
all the time and he is very sweet about it, but he says, what of it.
The Picassos were in Spain and Fernande wrote long letters describ-
ing Spain and the Spaniards and earthquakes.
In Florence except for the short visit of the Matisses and a short visit
from Alfy Maurer the summer life was in no way related to the Paris
life.
Gertrude Stein and her brother rented for the summer a villa on top
46 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
of the hill at Fiesole near Florence, and there they spent their summers
for several years. The year I came to Paris a friend and myself took this
villa, Gertrude Stein and her brother having taken a larger one on the
other side of Fiesole, having been joined that year by their elder brother,
his wife and child. The small one, the Casa Ricci, was very delightful.
It had been made livable by a Scotch woman who born Presbyterian be-
came an ardent Catholic and took her old Presbyterian mother from one
convent to another. Finally they came to rest in Casa Ricci and there
she made for herself a chapel and there her mother died. She then aban-
doned this for a lager villa which she turned into a retreat for retired
priests and Gertrude Stein and her brother rented the Casa Ricci from
her. Gertrude Stein delighted in her landlady who looked exactly like
a lady-in-waiting to Mary Stuart and with all her trailing black robes
genuflected before every Catholic symbol and would then climb up a
precipitous ladder and open a little window in the roof to look at the
stars. A strange mingling of Catholic and Protestant exaltation.
Helene the french servant never came down to Fiesole. She had by
that time married. She cooked for her husband during the summer and
mended the stockings of Gertrude Stein and her brother by putting new
feet into them. She also made jam. In Italy there was Maddalena quite
as important in Italy as Helene in Paris, but I doubt if with as much
appreciation for notabilities. Italy is too accustomed to the famous and
the children of the famous. It was Edwin Dodge who apropos of these
said, the lives of great men oft remind us we should leave no sons be-
hind us.
Gertrude Stein adored heat and sunshine although she always says
that Paris winter is an ideal climate. In those days it was always at noon
that she preferred to walk. I, who have and had no fondness for a sum-
mer sun, often accompanied her. Sometimes later in Spain I sat under
a tree and wept but she in the sun was indefatigable. She could even lie
in the sun and look straight up into a summer noon sun, she said it
rested her eyes and head.
There were amusing people in Florence. There were the Berensons
and at that time with them Gladys Deacon, a well known international
beauty, but after a winter of Montmartre Gertrude Stein found her too
easily shocked to be interesting. Then there were the first russians, von
Heiroth and his wife, she who afterwards had four husbands and once
GERTRUDE STEIN IN PARIS 47
pleasantly remarked that she had always been good friends with all her
husbands. He was foolish but attractive and told the usual russian stories.
Then there were the Thorolds and a great many others. And most im-
portant there was a most excellent english lending library with all sorts
of strange biographies which were to Gertrude Stein a source of endless
pleasure. She once told me that when she was young she had read so
much, read from the Elizabethans to the moderns, that she was terribly
uneasy lest some day she would be without anything to read. For years
this fear haunted her but in one way and another although she always
reads and reads she seems always to find more to read. Her eldest brother
used to complain that although he brought up from Florence every day
as many books as he could carry, there always were just as many to take
back.
It was during this summer that Gertrude Stein began her great book,
The Making of Americans.
It began with an old daily theme that she had written when at Rad-
cliffe,
"Once an angry man dragged his father along the ground through
his own orchard. tStop!' cried the groaning old man at last. 'Stop! I did
not drag my father beyond this tree.'
"It is hard living down the tempers we are born with. We all begin
well. For in our youth there is nothing we are more intolerant of than
our own sins writ large in others and we fight them fiercely in ourselves;
but we grow old and we see that these our sins are of all sins the really
harmless ones to own, nay that they give a charm to any character, and
so our struggle with them dies away." And it was to be the history of a
family. It was a history of a family but by the time I came to Paris it
was getting to be a history of all human beings, all who ever were or are
or could be living.
Gertrude Stein in all her life has never been as pleased with anything
as she is with the translation that Bernard Fay and Madame Seilliere are
making of this book now. She has just been going over it with Bernard
Fay and as she says, it is wonderful in english and it is even as wonder-
ful in french. Elliot Paul, when editor of transition once said that he
was certain that Gertrude Stein could be a best-seller in France. It seems
very likely that his prediction is to be fulfilled.
But to return to those old days in the Casa Ricci and the first begin-
48 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
nings of those long sentences which were to change the literary ideas of
a great many people.
Gertrude Stein was working tremendously over the beginning of The
Making of Americans and came back to Paris under the spell of the
thing she was doing. It was at this time that working every night she
often was caught by the dawn coming while she was working. She came
back to a Paris fairly full of excitement. In the first place she came back
to her finished portrait. The day he returned from Spain Picasso sat
down and out of his head painted the head in without having seen Ger-
trude Stein again. And when she saw it he and she were content. It is
very strange but neither can remember at all what the head looked like
when he painted it out. There is another charming story of the portrait.
Only a few years ago when Gertrude Stein had had her hair cut short,
she had always up toi that time worn it as a crown on top of her head
as Picasso has painted it, when she had had her hair cut, a day or so
later she happened to come into a room and Picasso was several rooms
away. She had a hat on but he caught sight of her through two door-
ways and approaching her quickly called out, Gertrude, what is it, what
is it. What is what, Pablo, she said. Let me see, he said. She let him see.
And my portrait, said he sternly. Then his face softening he added, mais,
quand meme tout y est, all the same it is all there.
Matisse was back and there was excitement in the air. Derain, and
Braque with him, had gone Montmartre. Braque was a young painter
who had known Marie Laurencin when they were both art students, and
they had then painted each other's portraits. After that Braque had done
rather geographical pictures, rounded hills and very much under the
colour influence of Matisse's independent painting. He had come to
know Derain, I am not sure but that they had known each other while
doing their military service, and now they knew Picasso. It was an excit-
ing moment.
They began to spend their days up there and they all always ate to-
gether at a little restaurant opposite, and Picasso was more than ever as
Gertrude Stein said the little bull-fighter followed by his squadron of
four, or as later in her portrait of him, she called him, Napoleon followed
by his four enormous grenadiers. Derain and Braque were great big
men, so was Guillaume a heavy set man and Salmon was not small.
Picasso was every inch a chief.
This brings the story to Salmon and Guillaume Apollinaire, although
GERTRUDE STEIN IN PARIS 49
Gertrude Stein had known these two and Marie Laurencin a consider-
able time before all this was happening.
Salmon and Guillaume Apollinaire both lived in Montmartre in these
days. Salmon was very lithe and alive but Gertrude Stein never found
him particularly interesting. She liked him. Guillaume Apollinaire on
the contrary was very wonderful. There was just about that time, that
is about the time when Gertrude Stein first knew Apollinaire, the ex-
citement of a duel that he was to fight with another writer. Fernande
and Pablo told about it with so much excitement and so much laughter
and so much Montmartre slang, this was in the early days of their ac-
quaintance, that she was always a little vague about just what did hap-
pen. But the gist of the matter was that Guillaume challenged the other
man and Max Jacob was to be the second and witness for Guillaume.
Guillaume and his antagonist each sat in their favourite cafe all day and
waited while their seconds went to and fro. How it all ended Gertrude
Stein does not know except that nobody fought, but the great excitement
was the bill each second and witness brought to his principal. In these
was itemised each time they had a cup of coffee and of course they had
to have a cup of coffee every time they sat down at one or other cafe
with one or other principal, and again when the two seconds sat with
each other. There was also the question under what circumstances were
they under the absolute necessity of having a glass of brandy with the
cup of coffee. And how often would they have had coffee if they had
not been seconds. All this led to endless meetings and endless discussion
and endless additional items. It lasted for days, perhaps weeks and
months and whether anybody finally was paid, even the cafe keeper,
nobody knows. It was notorious that Apollinaire was parted with the
very greatest difficulty from even the smallest piece of money. It was all
very absorbing.
Apollinaire was very attractive and very interesting. He had a head
like one of the late roman emperors. He had a brother whom one heard
about but never saw. He worked in a bank and therefore he was reason-
ably well dressed. When anybody in Montmartre had to go anywhere
where they had to be conventionally clothed, either to see a relation or
attend to a business matter, they always wore a piece of a suit that be-
longed to the brother of Guillaume.
Guillaume was extraordinarily brilliant and no matter what subject
was started, if he knew anything about it or not, he quickly saw the
50 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
whole meaning of the thing and elaborated it by his wit and fancy
carrying it further than anybody knowing anything about it could have
done, and oddly enough generally correctly.
Once, several years later, we were dining with the Picassos, and in a
conversation I got the best of Guillaume. I was very proud, but, said
Eve (Picasso was no longer with Fernande), Guillaume was frightfully
drunk or it would not have happened. It was only under such circum-
stances that anybody could successfully turn a phrase against Guillaume.
Poor Guillaume. The last time we saw him was after he had come
back to Paris from the war. He had been badly wounded in the head
and had had a piece of his skull removed. He looked very wonderful
with his bleu horizon and his bandaged head. He lunched with us and
we all talked a long time together. He was tired and his heavy head
nodded. He was very serious almost solemn. We went away shortly after,
we were working with the American Fund for French Wounded, and
never saw him again. Later Olga Picasso, the wife of Picasso, told us
that the night of the armistice Guillaume Apollinaire died, that they
were with him that whole evening and it was warm and the windows
were open and the crowd passing were shouting, a bas Guillaume, down
with William and as every one always called Guillaume Apollinaire
Guillaume, even in his death agony it troubled him.
He had really been heroic. As a foreigner, his mother was a pole, his
father possibly an italian, it was not at all necessary that he should volun-
teer to fight. He was a man of full habit, accustomed to a literary life
and the delights of the table, and in spite of everything he volunteered.
He went into the artillery first. Every one advised this as it was less dan-
•gerous and easier than the infantry, but after a while he could not bear
this half protection and he changed into the infantry and was wounded
in a charge. He was a long time in hospital, recovered a little, it was at
this time that we saw him, and finally died on the day of the armistice.
The death of Guillaume Apollinaire at this time made a very serious
difference to all his friends apart from their sorrow at his death. It was
the moment just after the war when many things had changed and
people naturally fell apart. Guillaume would have been a bond of union,
he always had a quality of keeping people together, and now that he
was gone everybody ceased to be friends. But all that was very much
later and now to go back again to the beginning when Gertrude Stein
first met Guillaume and Marie Laurencin.
GERTRUDE STEIN IN PARIS 51
Everybody called Gertrude Stein Gertrude, or at most Mademoiselle
Gertrude, everybody called Picasso Pablo and Fernande Fernande and
everybody called Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume and Max Jacob Max
but everybody called Marie Laurencin Marie Laurencin.
The first time Gertrude Stein ever saw Marie Laurencin, Guillaume
Apollinaire brought her to the rue de Fleurus, not on a Saturday eve-
ning, but another evening. She was very interesting. They were an ex-
traordinary pair. Marie Laurencin was terribly near-sighted and of
course she never wore eye-glasses, no french woman and few frenchmen
did in those days. She used a lorgnette.
She looked at each picture carefully that is, every picture on the line,
bringing her eye close and moving over the whole of it with her lor-
gnette, an inch at a time. The pictures out of reach she ignored. Finally
she remarked, as for myself, I prefer portraits and that is of course
quite natural, as I myself am a Clouet. And it was perfectly true, she
was a Clouet. She had the square thin build of the mediaeval french
women in the french primitives. She spoke in a high pitched beautifully
modulated voice. She sat down beside Gertrude Stein on the couch and
she recounted the story of her life, told that her mother who had always
had it in her nature to dislike men had been for many years the mistress
of an important personage, had borne her, Marie Laurencin. I have
never, she added, dared let her know Guillaume although of course he
is so sweet that she could not refuse to like him but better not. Some
day you will see her.
And later on Gertrude Stein saw the mother and by that time I was
in Paris and I was taken along.
Marie Laurencin, leading her strange life and making her strange
art, lived with her mother, who was a very quiet, very pleasant, very
dignified woman, as if the two were living in a convent. The small
apartment was filled with needlework which the mother had executed
after the designs of Marie Laurencin. Marie and her mother acted
toward each other exactly as a young nun with an older one. It was all
very strange. Later just before the war the mother fell ill and died.
Then the mother did see Guillaume Apollinaire and liked him.
After her mother's death Marie Laurencin lost all sense of stability.
She and Guillaume no longer saw each other. A relation that had existed
as long as the mother lived without the mother's knowledge now that
the mother was dead and had seen and liked Guillaume could no longer
52 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
endure. Marie against the advice of all her friends married a german.
When her friends remonstrated with her she said, but he is the only
one who can give me a feeling of my mother.
Six weeks after the marriage the war came and Marie had to leave
the country, having been married to a german. As she told me later
when once during the war we met in Spain, naturally the officials could
make no trouble for her, her passport made it clear that no one knew
who her father was and they naturally were afraid because perhaps her
father might be the president of the french republic.
During these war years Marie was very unhappy. She was intensely
french and she was technically german. When you met her she would
say, let me present to you my husband a boche, I do not remember his
name. The official french world in Spain with whom she and her hus-
band occasionally came in contact made things very unpleasant for her,
constantly referring to Germany as her country. In the meanwhile Guil-
laume with whom she was in correspondence wrote her passionately
patriotic letters. It was a miserable time for Marie Laurencin.
Finally Madame Groult, the sister of Poiret, coming to Spain, man-
aged to help Marie out of her troubles. She finally divorced her husband
and after the armistice returned to Paris, at home once more in the
world. It was then that she came to the rue de Fleurus again, this time
with Erik Satie. They were both Normans and so proud and happy
about it.
In the early days Marie Laurencin painted a strange picture, portraits
of Guillaume, Picasso, Fernande and herself. Fernande told Gertrude
Stein about it. Gertrude Stein bought it and Marie Laurencin was so
pleased. It was the first picture of hers any one had ever bought.
It was before Gertrude Stein knew the rue Ravignan that Guillaume
Apollinaire had his first paid job, he edited a little pamphlet about
physical culture. And it was for this that Picasso made his wonderful
caricatures, including one of Guillaume as an exemplar of what physical
culture could do.
And now once more to return to the return from all their travels and
to Picasso becoming the head of a movement that was later to be known
as the cubists. Who called it cubist first I do not know but very likely
it was Apollinaire. At any rate he wrote the first little pamphlet about
them all and illustrated it with their paintings.
I can so well remember the first time Gertrude Stein took me to see
GERTRUDE STEIN IN PARIS 53
Guillaume Apollinaire. It was a tiny bachelor's apartment on the rue des
Martyrs. The room was crowded with a great many small young gentle-
men. Who, I asked Fernande, are all these little men. They are poets,
answered Fernande. I was overcome. I had never seen poets before, one
poet yes but not poets. It was on that night too that Picasso, just a little
drunk and to Fernande's great indignation persisted in sitting beside me
and finding for me in a Spanish album of photographs the exact spot
where he was born. I came away with rather a vague idea of its situation.
Derain and Braque became followers of Picasso about six months
after Picasso had, through Gertrude Stein and her brother, met Matisse.
Matisse had in the meantime introduced Picasso to negro sculpture.
At that time negro sculpture had been well known to curio hunters
but not to artists. Who first recognised its potential value for the modern
artist I am sure I do not know. Perhaps it was Maillol who came from
the Perpignan region and knew Matisse in the south and called his atten-
tion to it. There is a tradition that it was Derain. It is also very possible
that it was Matisse himself because for many years there was a curio-
dealer in the rue de Rennes who always had a great many things of this
kind in his window and Matisse often went up the rue de Rennes to go
to one of the sketch classes.
In any case it was Matisse who first was influenced, not so much in
his painting but in his sculpture, by the african statues and it was
Matisse who drew Picasso's attention to it just after Picasso had finished
painting Gertrude Stein's portrait.
The effect of this african art upon Matisse and Picasso was entirely
different. Matisse through it was affected more in his imagination than
in his vision. Picasso more in his vision than in his imagination. Strangely
enough it is only very much later in his life that this influence has
affected his imagination and that may be through its having been re-
enforced by the Orientalism of the russians when he came in contact
with that through Diaghilev and the russian ballet.
In these early days when he created cubism the effect of the african
art was purely upon his vision and his forms, his imagination remained
purely Spanish. The Spanish quality of ritual and abstraction had been
indeed stimulated by his painting the portrait of Gertrude Stein. She
had a definite impulse then and always toward elemental abstraction.
She was not at any time interested in african sculpture. She always says
that she liked it well enough but that it has nothing to do with europeans,
54 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
that it lacks naivete, that it is very ancient, very narrow, very sophis-
ticated but lacks the elegance of the Egyptian sculpture from which it is
derived. She says that as an american she likes primitive things to be
more savage.
Matisse and Picasso then being introduced to each other by Gertrude
Stein and her brother became friends but they were enemies. Now they
are neither friends nor enemies. At that time they were both.
They exchanged pictures as was the habit in those days. Each painter
chose the one of the other one that presumably interested him the most.
Matisse and Picasso chose each one of the other one the picture that was
undoubtedly the least interesting either of them had done. Later each
one used it as an example, the picture he had chosen, of the weaknesses
of the other one. Very evidently in the two pictures chosen the strong
qualities of each painter were not much in evidence.
The feeling between the Picassoites and the Matisseites became bitter.
And this, you see, brings me to the independent where my friend and I
sat without being aware of it under the two pictures which first pub-
licly showed that Derain and Braque had become Picassoites and were
definitely not Matisseites.
In the meantime naturally a great many things had happened.
Matisse showed in every autumn salon and every independent. He
was beginning to have a considerable following. Picasso, on the con-
trary, never in all his wife has shown in any salon. His pictures at that
time could really only be seen at 27 rue de Eleurus. The first time as one
might say that he had ever shown at a public show was when Derain
and Braque, completely influenced by his recent work, showed theirs.
After that he too had many followers.
Matisse was irritated by the growing friendship between Picasso and
Gertrude Stein. Mademoiselle Gertrude, he explained, likes local colour
and theatrical values. It would be impossible for any one of her quality
to have a serious friendship with any one like Picasso. Matisse still came
frequently to the rue de Fleurus but there was no longer any frankness
of intercourse between them all. It was about this time that Gertrude
Stein and her brother gave a lunch for all the painters whose pictures
were on the wall. Of course it did not include the dead or the old. It was
at this lunch that as I have already said Gertrude Stein made them all
happy and made the lunch a success by seating each painter facing his
GERTRUDE STEIN, IN PARIS 55
own picture. No one of them noticed it, they were just naturally pleased,
until just as they were all leaving Matisse, standing up with his back to
the door and looking into the room suddenly realised what had been
done.
Matisse intimated that Gertrude Stein had lost interest in his work.
She answered him, there is nothing within you that fights itself and
hitherto you have had the instinct to produce antagonism in others which
stimulated you to attack. But now they follow.
That was the end of the conversation but a beginning of an important
part of The Making of Americans. Upon this idea Gertrude Stein based
some of her most permanent distinctions in types of people.
It was about this time that Matisse began his teaching. He now moved
from the Quai Saint-Michel, where he had lived ever since his marriage,
to the boulevard des Invalides. In consequence of the separation of
church and state which had just taken place in France the french gov-
ernment had become possessed of a great many convent schools and
other church property. As many of these convents ceased to exist, there
were at that time a great many of their buildings empty. Among others
a very splendid one on the boulevard des Invalides.
These buildings were being rented at very low prices because no lease
was given, as the government when it decided how to use them perma-
nently would put the tenants out without warning. It was therefore an
ideal place for artists as there were gardens and big rooms and they
could put up with the inconveniences of housekeeping under the cir-
cumstances. So the Matisses moved in and Matisse instead of a small
room to work in had an immense one and the two boys came home and
they were all very happy. Then a number of those who had become his
followers asked him if he would teach them if they organised a class for
him in the same building in which he was then living. He consented
and the Matisse atelier began.
The applicants were of all nationalities and Matisse was at first ap-
palled at the number and variety of them. He told with much amuse-
ment as well as surprise that when he asked a very little woman in the
front row, what in particular she had in mind in her painting, what she
was seeking, she replied, Monsieur je cherche le neuf. He used to won-
der how they all managed to learn french when he knew none of
their languages. Some one got hold of some of these facts and made fun
56 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
of the school iij one of the french weeklies. This hurt Matisse's feelings
frightfully. The article said, and where did these people come from, and
it was answered, from Massachusetts. Matisse was very unhappy.
But in spite of all this and also in spite of many dissensions the school
flourished. There were difficulties. One of the hungarians wanted to
earn his living posing for the class and in the intervals when some one
else posed go on with his painting. There were a number of young
women who protested, a nude model on a model stand was one thing
but to have it turn into a fellow student was another. A hungarian was
found eating the bread for rubbing out crayon drawings that the various
students left on their painting boards and this evidence of extreme
poverty and lack of hygiene had an awful effect upon the sensibilities
of the americans. There were quite a number of americans. One of these
americans under the plea of poverty was receiving his tuition for nothing
and then was found to have purchased for himself a tiny Matisse and a
tiny Picasso and a tiny Scurat. This was not only unfair, because many
of the others wanted and could not afford to own a picture by the master
and they were paying their tuition, but, since he also bought a Picasso,
it was treason. And then every once in a while some one said something
to Matisse in such bad french that it sounded like something very dif-
ferent from what it was and Matisse grew very angry and the unfortu-
nate had to be taught how to apologise properly. All the students were
working under such a state of tension that explosions were frequent.
One would accuse another of undue influence with the master and then
there were long and complicated scenes in which usually some one had
to apologise. It was all very difficult since they themselves organised
themselves.
Gertrude Stein enjoyed all these complications immensely. Matisse
was a good gossip and so was she and at this time they delighted in tell-
ing tales to each other.
She began at that time always calling Matisse the C.M. or cher maitre.
She told him the favourite Western story, pray gentlemen, let there be
no bloodshed. Matisse came not unfrequently to the rue de Fleurus. It
was indeed at this time that Helene prepared him the fried eggs instead
of an omelet.
Three Lives had been typewritten and now the next thing was to
show it to a publisher. Some one gave Gertrude Stein the name of an
agent in New York and she tried that. Nothing came of it. Then she
GERTRUDE STEIN IN PARIS 57
tried publishers directly. The only one at all interested was Bobbs-Merrill
and they said they could not undertake it. This attempt to find a pub-
lisher lasted some time and then without being really discouraged she
decided to have it printed. It was not an unnatural thought as people in
Paris often did this. Some one told her about the Grafton Press in New
York, a respectable firm that printed special historical things that people
wanted to have printed. The arrangements were concluded, Three Lives
was to be printed and the proofs to be sent.
One day some one knocked at the door and a very nice very american
young man asked if he might speak to Miss Stein. She said, yes come in.
He said, I have come at the request of the Grafton Press. Yes, she said.
You see, he said slightly hesitant, the director of the Grafton Press is
under the impression that perhaps your knowledge of english. But I
am an american, said Gertrude Stein indignantly. Yes yes I understand
that perfectly now, he said, but perhaps you have not had much experi-
ence in writing. I suppose, said she laughing, you were under the im-
pression that I was imperfectly educated. He blushed, why no, he said,
but you might not have had much experience in writing. Oh yes, she
said, oh yes. Well it's alright. I will write to the director and you might
as well tell him also that everything that is written in the manuscript is
written with the intention of its being so written and all he has to do is to
print it and I will take the responsibility. The young man bowed himself
out.
Later when the book was noticed by interested writers and newspaper
men the director of the Grafton Press wrote Gertrude Stein a very simple
letter in which he admitted he had been surprised at the notice the book
had received but wished to add that now that he had seen the result he
wished to say that he was very pleased that his firm had printed the book.
But this last was after I came to Paris.
4 Gertrude Stein Before She Came to Paris
Once more I have come to Paris and now I am one of the habitues of
the rue de Fleurus. Gertrude Stein was writing The Making of Ameri-
cans and she had just commenced correcting the proofs of Three Lives.
I helped her correct them.
Gertrude Stein was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. As I am an
ardent californian and as she spent her youth there I have often begged
her to be born in California but she has always remained firmly born in
Allegheny, Pennsylvania. She left it when she was six months old and
has never seen it again and now it no longer exists being all of it Pitts-
burgh. She used however to delight in being born in Allegheny, Penn-
sylvania when during the war, in connection with war work, we used
to have papers made out and they always immediately wanted to know
one's birth-place. She used to say if she had been really born in Cali-
fornia as I wanted her to have been she would never have had the pleas-
ure of seeing the various french officials try to write, Allegheny, Penn-
sylvania.
When I first knew Gertrude Stein in Paris I was surprised never to
see a french book on her table, although there were always plenty of
english ones, there were even no french newspapers. But do you never
read french, I as well as many other people asked her. No, she replied,
you see I feel with my eyes and it does not make any difference to me
what language I hear, I don't hear a language, I hear tones of voice and
rhythms, but with my eyes I see words and sentences and there is for me
only one language and that is english. One of the things that I have liked
all these years is to be surrounded by people who know no english. It
has left me more intensely alone with my eyes and my english. I do not
know if it would have been possible to have english be so all in all to
me otherwise. And they none of them could read a word I wrote, most
of them did not even know that I did write. No, I like living with so
very many people and being all alone with english and myself.
58
GERTRUDE STEIN BEFORE SHE CAME TO PARIS 59
One of her chapters in The Making of Americans begins : I write for
myself and strangers.
She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, of a very respectable middle
class family. She always says that she is very grateful not to have been
born of an intellectual family, she has a horror of what she calls intel-
lectual people. It has always been rather ridiculous that she who is good
friends with all the world and can know them and they can know her,
has always been the admired of the precious. But she always says some
day they, anybody, will find out that she is of interest to them, she and
her writing. And she always consoles herself that the newspapers are
always interested. They always say, she says, that my writing is appalling
but they always quote it and what is more, they quote it correctly, and
those they say they admire they do not quote. This at some of her most
bitter moments has been a consolation. My sentences do get under their
skin, only they do not know that they do, she has often said.
She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in a house, a twin house.
Her family lived in one and her father's brother's family lived in the
other one. These two families are the families described in The Making
of Americans. They had lived in these houses for about eight years
when Gertrude Stein was born. A year before her birth, the two sisters-
in-law who had never gotten along any too well were no longer on speak-
ing terms.
Gertrude Stein's mother as she describes her in The Making of Ameri-
cans, a gentle pleasant little woman with a quick temper, flatly refused
to see her sister-in-law again. I don't know quite what had happened
but something. At any rate the two brothers who had been very success-
ful business partners broke up their partnership, the one brother went
to New York where he and all his family after him became very rich
and the other brother, Gertrude Stein's family, went to Europe. They
first went to Vienna and stayed there until Gertrude Stein was about
three years old. All she remembers of this is that her brother's tutor once,
when she was allowed to sit with her brothers at their lessons, described
a tiger's snarl and that that pleased and terrified her. Also that in a pic-
ture-book that one of her brothers used to show her there was a story of
the wanderings of Ulysses who when sitting sat on bent-wood dining
room chairs. Also she remembers that they used to play in the public
gardens and that often the old Kaiser Francis Joseph used to stroll
through the gardens and sometimes a band played the austrian national
60 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
hymn which she liked. She believed for many years that Kaiser was the
real name of Francis Joseph and she never could come to accept the name
as belonging to anybody else.
They lived in Vienna for three years, the father having in the mean-
while gone back to America on business and then they moved to Paris.
Here Gertrude Stein has more lively memories. She remembers a little
school where she and her elder sister stayed and where there was a little
girl in the corner of the school yard and the other little girls told her not
to go near her, she sscratched. She also remembers the bowl of soup with
french bread for breakfast and she also remembers that they had mutton
and spinach for lunch and as she was very fond of spinach and not fond
of mutton she used to trade mutton for spinach with the little girl op-
posite. She also remembers all of her three older brothers coming to see
them at the school and coming on horse-back. She also remembers a
black cat jumping from the ceiling of their house at Passy and scaring
her mother and some unknown person rescuing her.
The family remained in Paris a year and then they came back to
America. Gertrude Stein's elder brother charmingly describes the last
days when he and his mother went shopping and bought everything
that pleased their fancy, seal skin coats and caps and muffs for the whole
family from the mother to the small sister Gertrude Stein, gloves dozens
of gloves, wonderful hats, riding costumes, and finally ending up with
a microscope and a whole set of the famous french history of zoology.
Then they sailed for America.
This visit to Paris made a very great impression upon Gertrude Stein.
When in the beginning of the war, she and I having been in England
and there having been caught by the outbreak of the war and so not
returning until October, were back in Paris, the first day we went out
Gertrude Stein said, it is strange, Paris is so different but so familiar.
And then reflectively, I see what it is, there is nobody here but the french
(there were no soldiers or allies there yet), you can see the little children
in their black aprons, you can see the streets because there is nobody on
them, it is just like my memory of Paris when I was three years old.
The pavements smell like they used (horses had come back into use),
the smell of french streets and french public gardens that I remember
so well.
They went back to America and in New York, the New York family
GERTRUDE STEIN BEFORE SHE CAME TO PARIS 61
tried to reconcile Gertrude Stein's mother to her sister-in-law but she
was obdurate.
This story reminds me of Miss Etta Cone, a distant connection of
Gertrude Stein, who typed Three Lives. When I first met her in Flor-
ence she confided to me that she could forgive but never forget. I added
that as for myself I could forget but not forgive. Gertrude Stein's mother
in this case was evidently unable to do either.
The family went west to California after a short stay in Baltimore at
the home of her grandfather, the religious old man she describes in The
Making of Americans, who lived in an old house in Baltimore with a
large number of those cheerful pleasant little people, her uncles and her
aunts.
Gertrude Stein has never ceased to be thankful to her mother for
neither forgetting or forgiving. Imagine, she has said to me, if my mother
had forgiven her sister-in-law and my father had gone into business with
my uncle and we had lived and been brought up in New York, imagine,
she says, how horrible. We would have been rich instead of being rea-
sonably poor but imagine how horrible to have been brought up in New
York.
I as a californian can very thoroughly sympathise.
And so they took the train to California. The only thing Gertrude
Stein remembers of this trip was that she and her sister had beautiful
big austrian red felt hats trimmed each with a beautiful ostrich feather
and at some stage of the trip her sister leaning out of the window had
her hat blown off. Her1 father rang the emergency bell, stopped the train,
got the hat to the awe and astonishment of the passengers and the con-
ductor. The only other thing she remembers is that they had a wonder-
ful hamper of food given them by the aunts in Baltimore and that in it
was a marvellous turkey. And that later as the food in it diminished it
was renewed all along the road whenever they stopped and that that
was always exciting. And also that somewhere in the desert they saw
some red indians and that somewhere else in the desert they were given
some very funny tasting peaches to eat.
When they arrived in California they went to an orange grove but
she does not remember any oranges but remembers filling up her father's
cigar boxes with little limes which were very wonderful.
They came by slow stages to San Francisco and settled down in Oak-
62 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
land. She remembers there the eucalyptus trees seeming to her so tall
and thin and savage and the animal life very wild. But all this and much
more, all the physical life of these days, she has described in the life of
the Hersland family in her Making of Americans. The important thing
to tell about now is her education.
Her father having taken his children to Europe so that they might
have the benefit of a europeari education now insisted that they should
forget their french and german so that their american english would
be pure. Gertrude Stein had prattled in german and then in french but
she had never read until she read english. As she says eyes to her were
more important than ears and it happened then as always that english
was her only language.
Her bookish life commenced at this time. She read anything that was
printed that came her way and a great deal came her way. In the house
were a few stray novels, a few travel books, her mother's well bound
gift books Wordsworth Scott and other poets, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Prog-
ress a set of Shakespeare with notes, Burns, Congressional Records en-
cyclopedias etcetera. She read them all and many times. She and her
brothers began to acquire other books. There was also the local free
library and later in San Francisco there were the mercantile and me-
chanics libraries with their excellent sets of eighteenth century and nine-
teenth century authors. From her eighth year when she absorbed Shake-
speare to her fifteenth year when she read Clarissa Harlowe, Fielding,
Smollett etcetera and used to worry lest in a few years more she would
have read everything and there would be nothing unread to read, she
lived continuously with the english language. She read a tremendous
amount of history, she often laughs and says she is one of the few people
of her generation that has read every line of Carlyle's Frederick the
Great and Lecky's Constitutional History of England besides Charles
Grandison and Wordsworth's longer poems. In fact she was as she still
is always reading. She reads anything and everything and even now
hates to be disturbed and above all however often she has read a book
and however foolish the book may be no one must make fun of it or
tell her how it goes on. It is still as it always was real to her.
The theatre she has always cared for less. She says it goes too fast, the
mixture of eye and ear bothers her and her emotion never keeps pace.
Music she only cared for during her adolescence. She finds it difficult
to listen to it, it does not hold her attention. All of which of course may
GERTRUDE STEIN BEFORE SHE CAME TO PARIS 63
seem strange because it has been so often said that the appeal of her work
is to the ear and to the subconscious. Actually it is her eyes and mind
that are active and important and concerned in choosing.
Life in California came to its end when Gertrude Stein was about
seventeen years old. The last few years had been lonesome ones and had
been passed in an agony of adolescence. After the death of first her
mother and then her father she and her sister and one brother left Cali-
fornia for the East. They came to Baltimore and stayed with her mother's
people. There she began to lose her lonesomeness. She has often de-
scribed to me how strange it was to her coming from the rather des-
perate inner life that she had been living for the last few years to the
cheerful life of all her aunts and uncles. When later she went to Rad-
cliffe she described this experience in the first thing she ever wrote.
Not quite the first thing she ever wrote. She remembers having written
twice before. Once when she was about eight and she tried to write a
Shakespearean drama in which she got as far as a stage direction, the
courtiers making witty remarks. And then as she could not think of any
witty remarks gave it up.
The only other effort she can remember must have been at about the
same age. They asked the children in the public schools to write a de-
scription. Her recollection is that she described a sunset with the sun
going into a cave of clouds. Anyway it was one of the half dozen in the
school chosen to be copied out on beautiful parchment paper. After she
had tried to copy it twice and the writing became worse and worse she
was reduced to letting some one else copy it for her. This, her teacher
considered a disgrace. She does not remember that she herself did.
As a matter of fact her handwriting has always been illegible and I am
very often able to read it when she is not.
She has never been able or had any desire to indulge in any of the arts.
She never knows how a thing is going to look until it is done, in arrang-
ing a room, a garden, clothes or anything else. She cannot draw any-
thing. She feels no relation between the object and the piece of paper.
When at the medical school, she was supposed to draw anatomical things
she never found out in sketching how a thing was made concave or
convex. She remembers when she was very small she was to learn to
draw and was sent to a class. The children were told to take a cup and
saucer at home and draw them and the best drawing wpuld have as its
reward a stamped leather medal and the next week the same medal
64 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
would again be given for the best drawing. Gertrude Stein went home,
told her brothers and they put a pretty cup and saucer before her and
each one explained to her how to draw it. Nothing happened. Finally
one of them drew it for her. She took it to the class and won the leather
medal. And on the way home in playing some game she lost the leather
medal. That was the end of the drawing class.
She says it is a good thing to have no sense of how it is done in the
things that amuse you. You should have one absorbing occupation and
as for the other things in life for full enjoyment you should only con-
template results. In this way you are bound to feel more about it than
those who know a little of how it is done.
She is passionately addicted to what the french call metier and she
contends that one can only have one metier as one can only have one
language. Her metier is writing and her language is english.
Observation and construction make imagination, that is granting the
possession of imagination, is what she has taught .many young writers.
Once when Hemingway wrote in one of his stories that Gertrude Stein
always knew what was good in a Cezanne, she looked at him and said,
Hemingway, remarks are not literature.
The young often when they have learnt all they can learn accuse her
of an inordinate pride. She says yes of course. She realises that in english
literature in her time she is the only one. She has always known it and
now she says it.
She understands very well the basis of creation and therefore her ad-
vice and criticism is invaluable to all her friends. How often have I heard
Picasso say to her when she has said something about a picture of his
and then illustrated by something she was trying to do, racontez-moi
cela. In other words tell me about it. These two even to-day have long
solitary conversations. They sit in two little low chairs up in his apart-
ment studio, knee to knee and Picasso says, expliquez-moi cela. And
they explain to each other. They talk about everything, about pictures,
about dogs, about death, about unhappiness. Because Picasso is a
Spaniard and life is tragic and bitter and unhappy. Gertrude Stein often
comes down to me and says, Pablo has been persuading me that I am
as unhappy as he is. He insists that I am and with as much cause. But
are you, I ask. Well I don't think I look it, do I, and she laughs. He says,
she says, that I don't look it because I have more courage, but I don't
think I am, she says, no I don't think I am.
GERTRUDE STEIN BEFORE SHE CAME TO PARIS 65
And so Gertrude Stein having been in Baltimore for a winter and
having become more humanised and less adolescent and less lonesome
went to Radcliffe. There she had a very good time.
She was one of -a group of Harvard men and Radcliffe women and
they all lived very closely and very interestingly together. One of them,
a young philosopher and mathematician who was doing research work
in psychology left a definite mark on her life. She and he together
worked out a series of experiments in automatic writing under the direc-
tion of Miinsterberg. The result of her own experiments, which Gertrude
Stein wrote down and which was printed in the Harvard Psychological
Review was the first writing of hers ever to be printed. It is very inter-
esting to read because the method of writing to be afterwards developed
in Three Lives and Making of Americans already shows itself.
The important person in Gertrude Stein's Radcliffe life was William
James. She enjoyed her life and herself. She was the secretary of the
philosophical club and amused herself with all sorts of people. She liked
making sport of question asking and she liked equally answering them.
She liked it all. But the really lasting impression of her Radcliffe life
came through William James.
It is rather strange that she was not then at all interested in the work
of Henry James for whom she now has a very great admiration and
whom she considers quite definitely as her forerunner, he being the only
nineteenth century writer who being an american felt the method of
the twentieth century. Gertrude Stein always speaks of America as being
now the oldest country in the world because by the methods of the civil
war and the commercial conceptions that followed it America created
the twentieth century, and since all the other countries are now either
living or commencing to be- living a twentieth century of life, America
having begun the creation of the twentieth century in the sixties of the
nineteenth century is now the oldest country in the world.
- In the same way she contends that Henry James was the first person
in literature to find the way to the literary methods of the twentieth
century. But oddly enough in all of her formative period she did not
read him and was not interested in him. But as she often says one is
always naturally antagonistic to one's parents and sympathetic to one's
grandparents. The parents are too close, they hamper you, one must be
alone. So perhaps that is the reason why only very lately Gertrude Stein
reads Henry James.
66 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
William James delighted her. His personality and his teaching and
his way of amusing himself with himself and his students all pleased
her. Keep your mind open, he used to say, and when some one objected,
but Professor James, this that I say, is true. Yes, said James, it is abjectly
true.
Gertrude Stein never had subconscious reactions, nor was she a suc-
cessful subject for automatic writing. One of the students in the psycho-
logical seminar of which Gertrude Stein, although an undergraduate
was at William James' particular request a member, was carrying on a
series of experiments on suggestions to the subconscious. When he read
his paper upon the result of his experiments, he began by explaining
that one of the subjects gave absolutely no results and as this much
lowered the average and made the conclusion of his experiments false
he wished to be allowed to cut this record out. Whose record is it, said
James. Miss Stein's, said the student. Ah, said James, if Miss Stein gave
no response I should say that it was as normal not to give a response as to
give one and decidedly the result must not be cut out.
It was a very lovely spring day, Gertrude Stein had been going to the
opera every night and going also to the opera in the afternoon and had
been otherwise engrossed and it was the period of the final examinations,
and there was the examination in William James' course. She sat down
with the examination paper before her and she just could not. Dear
Professor James, she wrote at the top of her paper. I am so sorry but
really I do not feel a bit like an examination paper in philosophy to-day,
and left.
The next day she had a postal card from William James saying, Dear
Miss Stein, I understand perfectly how you feel I often feel like that
myself. And underneath it he gave her work the highest mark in his
course.
When Gertrude Stein was finishing her last year at Radcliffe, Wil-
liam James one day asked her what she was going to do. She said she
had no idea. Well, he said, it should be either philosophy or psychology.
Now for philosophy you have to have higher mathematics and I don't
gather that that has ever interested you. Now for psychology you must
have a medical education, a medical education opens all doors, as Oliver
Wendell Holmes told me and as I tell you. Gertrude Stein had been in-
terested in both biology and chemistry and so medical scnool presented
no difficulties.
GERTRUDE STEIN BEFORE SHE CAME TO PARIS 67
There were no difficulties except that Gertrude Stein had never passed
more than half of her entrance examinations for Radcliffe, having never
intended to take a degree. However with considerable struggle and
enough tutoring that was accomplished and Gertrude, Stein entered
Johns Hopkins Medical School.
Some years after when Gertrude Stein and her brother were just be-
ginning knowing Matisse and Picasso, William James came to Paris
and they met. She went to see him at his hotel. He was enormously in-
terested in what she was doing, interested in her writing and in the pic-
tures she told him about. He went with her to her house to see them.
He looked and gasped, I told you, he said, I always told you that you
should keep your mind open.
Only about two years ago a very strange thing happened. Gertrude
Stein received a letter from a man in Boston. It was evident from the
letter head that he was one of a firm of lawyers. He said in his letter that
he had not long ago in reading in the Harvard library found that the
library of William James had been given as a gift to the Harvard library.
Among these books was the copy of Three Lives that Gertrude Stein
had dedicated and sent to James. Also on the margins of the book were
notes that William James had evidently made when reading the book.
The man then went on to say that very likely Gertrude Stein would be
very interested in these notes and he proposed, if she wished, to copy
them out for her as he had appropriated the book, in other words taken
it and considered it as his. We were very puzzled what to do about it.
Finally a note was written saying that Gertrude Stein would like to
have a copy of William James' notes. In answer came a manuscript the
man himself had written and of which he wished Gertrude Stein to give
him an opinion. Not knowing what to do about it all, Gertrude Stein
did nothing.
After having passed her entrance examinations she settled down in
Baltimore and went to the medical school. She had a servant named
Lena and it is her story that Gertrude Stein afterwards wrote as the
first story of the Three Lives.
The first two years of the medical school were alright. They were
purely laboratory work and Gertrude Stein under Llewelys Barker im-
mediately betook herself to research work. She began a study of all the
brain tracts, the beginning of a comparative study. All this was later
embodied in Llewelys Barker's book. She delighted in Doctor Mall,
68 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
professor of anatomy, who directed her work. She always quotes his
answer to any student excusing him or herself for anything. He would
look reflective and say, yes that is just like our cook. There is alv/ays a
reason. She never brings the food to the table hot. In summer of course
she can't because it is too hot, in winter of course she can't because it is
too cold, yes there is always a reason. Doctor Mall believed in everybody
developing their own technique. He also remarked, nobody teaches any-
body anything, at first every student's scalpel is dull and then later every
student's scalpel is sharp, and nobody has taught anybody anything.
These first two years at the medical school Gertrude Stein liked well
enough. She always liked knowing a lot of people and being mixed up
in a lot of stories and she was not awfully interested but she was not too
bored with what she was doing and besides she had quantities of pleasant
relatives in Baltimore and she liked it. The last two years at the medical
school she was bored, frankly openly bored. There was a good deal of
intrigue and struggle among the students, that she liked, but the prac-
tice and theory of medicine did not interest her at all. It was fairly well
known among all her teachers that she was bored, but as her first two
years of scientific work had given her a reputation, everybody gave her
the necessary credits and the end of her last year was approaching. It
was then that she had to take her turn in the delivering of babies and
it was at that time that she noticed the negroes and the places that she
afterwards used in the second of the Three Lives stories, Melanctha
Herbert, the story that was the beginning of her revolutionary work.
As she always says of herself, she has a great deal of inertia and once
started keeps going until she starts somewhere else.
As the graduation examinations drew near some of her professors
were getting angry. The big men like Halstead, Osier etcetera knowing
her reputation for original scientific work made the medical examina-
tions merely a matter of form and passed her. But there were others who
were not so amiable. Gertrude Stein always laughed, and this was diffi-
cult. They would ask her questions although as she said to her friends,
it was foolish of them to ask her, when there were so many eager and
anxious to answer. However they did question her from time to time
and as she said, what could she do, she did not know the answers and
they did not believe that she did not know them, they thought that she
did not answer because she did not consider the professors worth an-
swering. It was a difficult situation, as she said, it was 'impossible to
GERTRUDE STEIN BEFORE SHE CAME TO PARIS 69
apologise and explain to them that she was so bored she could not re-
member the things that of course the dullest medical student could not
forget. One of the professors said that although all the big men were
ready to pass her he intended that she should be given a lesson and he
refused to give her a pass mark and so she was not able to take her degree.
There was great excitement in the medical school. Her very close friend
Marion Walker pleaded with her, she said, but Gertrude Gertrude re-
member the cause of women, and Gertrude Stein said, you don't know
what it is to be bored.
The professor who had flunked her asked her to come to see him. She
did. He said, of course Miss Stein all you have to do is to take a summer
course here and in the fall naturally you will take your degree. But not
at all, said Gertrude Stein, you have no idea how grateful I am to you.
I have so much inertia and so little initiative that very possibly if you
had not kept me from taking my degree I would have, well, not taken
to the practice of medicine, but at any rate to pathological psychology
and you don't know how little I like pathological psychology, and how
all medicine bores me. The professor was completely taken aback and
that was the end of the medical education of Gertrude Stein.
She always says she dislikes the abnormal, it is so obvious. She says
the normal is so much more simply complicated and interesting.
It was only a few years ago that Marion Walker, Gertrude Stein's old
friend, came to see her at Bilignin where we spend the summer. She and
Gertrude Stein had not met since those old days nor had they corre-
sponded but they were as fond of each other and disagreed as violently
about the cause of women as they did then. Not, as Gertrude Stein ek-
plained to Marion Walker, that she at all minds the cause of women or
any other cause but it does not happen to be her business.
During these years at Radcliflfe and Johns Hopkins she often spent
the summers in Europe. The last couple of years her brother had been
settled in Florence and now that everything medical was over she joined
him there and later they settled down in London for the winter.
They settled in lodgings in London and were not uncomfortable.
They knew a number of people through the Berensons, Bertrand Rus-
sell, the Zangwills, then there was Willard (Josiah Flynt) who wrote
Tramping With Tramps, and who knew all about London pubs, but
Gertrude Stein was not very much amused. She began spending all her
days in the British Museum reading the Elizabethans. She returned to
70 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
her early loveof Shakespeare and the Elizabethans, and became absorbed
in Elizabethan prose and particularly in the prose of Greene. She had
little note-books full of phrases that pleased her as they had pleased her
when she was a child. The rest of the time she^ wandered about the Lon-
don streets and found them infinitely depressing and dismal. She never
really got over this memory of London and never wanted to go back
there, but in nineteen hundred and twelve she went over to see John
Lane, the publisher and then living a very pleasant life and visiting very
gay and pleasant people she forgot the old memory and became very
fond of London.
She always said that that first visit had made London just like Dickens
and Dickens had always frightened her. As ^he says anything can
frighten her and London when it was like Dickens certainly did.
There were some compensations, there was the prose of Greene and it
was at this time that she discovered the novels of Anthony Trollope, for
her the greatest of the Victorians. She then got together the complete
collection of his work some of it difficult to get and only obtainable in
Tauchnitz and it is of this collection that Robert Coates speaks when he
tells about Gertrude Stein lending books to young writers. She also
bought a quantity of eighteen century memoirs among them the Creevy
papers and Walpole and it is these that she loaned to Bravig Imbs when
he wrote what she believes to be an admirable life of Chatterton. She
reads books but she is not fussy about them, she cares about neither edi-
tions nor make-up as long as the print is not too bad and she is not even
very much bothered about that. It was at this time too that, as she says,
she ceased to be worried about there being in the future nothing to read,
she said she felt that she would always somehow be able to find some-
thing.
But the dismalness of London and the drunken women and children
and the gloom and the lonesomeness brought back all the melancholy of
her adolescence and one day she said she was leaving for America and
she left. She stayed in America the rest of the winter. In the meantime
her brother also had left London and gone to Paris and there later sh'e
joined him. She immediately began to write. She wrote a short novel.
The funny thing about this short novel is that she completely forgot
about it for many years. She remembered herself beginning a little later
writing the Three Lives but this first piece of writing was completely
forgotten, she had never mentioned it to me, even when I first knew
GERTRUDE STEIN BEFORE SHE CAME TO PARIS 71
her. She must have forgotten about it almost immediately. This spring
just two days before our leaving for the country she was looking for
some manuscript of The Making of Americans that she wanted to show
Bernard Fay and she came across these two carefully written volumes
of this completely forgotten first novel. She was very bashful and hesitant
about it, did not really want to read it. Louis Bromfield was at the house
that evening and she handed him the manuscript and said to him, you
read it.
5 1907-1914
And so life in Paris began and as all roads lead to Paris, all of us are
now there, and I can begin to tell what happened when I was of it.
When I first came to Paris a friend and myself stayed in a little hotel
in the boulevard Saint-Michel, then we took a small apartment in the
rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs and then my friend went back to Cali-
fornia and I joined Gertrude Stein in the rue de Fleurus.
I had been at the rue de Fleurus every Saturday evening and I was
there a great deal beside. I helped Gertrude Stein with the proofs of
Three Lives and then I began to typewrite The Making of Americans.
The little badly made french portable was not strong enough to type
this big book and so we bought a large and imposing Smith Premier
which at first looked very much out of place in the atelier but soon we
were all used to it and it remained until I had an american portable, in
short until after the war.
As I said Fernande was the first wife of a genius I was to sit with.
The geniuses came and talked to Gertrude Stein and the wives sat with
me. How they unroll, an endless vista through the years. I began with
Fernande and then there were Madame Matisse and Marcelle Braque
and Josette Gris and Eve Picasso and Bridget Gibb and Marjory Gibb
and Hadley and Pauline Hemingway and Mrs. Sherwood Anderson
and Mrs. Bravig Imbs and the Mrs. Ford Madox Ford and endless
others, geniuses, near geniuses and might be geniuses, all having wives,
and I have sat and talked with them all all the wives and later on, well
later on too, I have sat and talked with all. But I began with Fernande.
I went too to the Casa Ricci in Fiesole with Gertrude Stein and her
brother. How well I remember the first summer I stayed with them. We
did charming things. Gertrude Stein and I took a Fiesole cab, I think
it was the only one and drove in this old cab all the way to Siena. Ger-
trude Stein had once walked it with a friend but in those hot italian
days I preferred a cab. It was a charming trip. Then another time we
72
1907-1914' 73
went to Rome and we brought back a beautiful black renaissance plate.
Maddalena, the old italian cook, came up to Gertrude Stein's bedroom
one morning to bring the water for her bath. Gertrude Stein had the
hiccoughs. But cannot the signora stop it, said Maddalena anxiously.
No, said Gertrude Stein between hiccoughs. Maddalena shaking her
head sadly went away. In a minute there was an awful crash. Up flew
Maddalena, oh signora, signora, she said, I was so upset because the
signora had the hiccoughs that I broke the black plate that the signora
so carefully brought from Rome. Gertrude Stein began to swear, she
has a reprehensible habit of swearing whenever anything unexpected
happens and she always tells me she learned it in her youth in California,
and as I am a loyal californian I can then say nothing. She swore and
the hiccoughs ceased. Maddalena's face was wreathed in smiles. Ah the
signorina, she said, she has stopped hiccoughing. Oh no I did not break
the beautiful plate, I just made the noise of it and then said I did it to
make the signorina stop hiccoughing.
Gertrude Stein is awfully patient over the breaking of even her most
cherished objects, it is I, I am sorry to say who usually break them.
Neither she nor the servant nor the dog do, but then the servant never
touches them, it is I who dust them and alas sometimes accidentally break
them. I always beg her to promise to let me have them mended by an ex-
pert before I tell her which it is that is broken, she always replies she gets
no pleasure out of them if they are mended but alright have it mended
and it is mended and it gets put away. She loves objects that are breakable,
cheap objects and valuable objects, a chicken out of a grocery shop or a
'pigeon out of a fair, one just broke this morning, this time it was not I
who did it, she loves them all and she remembers them all but she knows
that sooner or later they will break and she says that like books there
are always more to find. However to me this is no consolation. She says
she likes what she has and she likes the adventure of a new one. That
is what she always says about young painters, about anything, once
everybody knows they are good the adventure is over. And adds Picasso
with a sigh, even after everybody knows they are good not any more
people really like them than they did when only the few knew they were
good.
I did have to take one hot walk that summer. Gertrude Stein insisted
that no one could go to Assisi except on foot. She has three favourite
saints, Saint Ignatius Loyola, Saint Theresa of Avila and Saint Francis.
74 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
I alas have only one favourite saint, Saint Anthony of Padua because it
is he who finds lost objects and as Gertrude Stein's elder brother once
said of me, if I were a general I would never lose a battle, I would only
mislay it. Saint Anthony helps me find it. I always put a considerable
sum in his box in every church I visit. At first Gertrude Stein objected
to this extravagance but now she realises its necessity and if I am not
with her she remembers Saint Anthony for me.
It was a very hot italian day and we started as usual about noon, that
being Gertrude Stein's favourite walking hour, because it was hottest
and beside presumably Saint Francis had walked it then the oftenest
as he had walked it at all hours. We started from Perugia across the hot
valley. I gradually undressed, in those days one wore many more clothes
than one does now, I even, which was most unconventional in those
days, took off my stockings, but even so I dropped a few tears before
we arrived and we did arrive. Gertrude Stein was very fond of Assisi
for two reasons, because of Saint Francis and the beauty of his city and
because the old women used to lead instead of a goat a little pig up and
down the hills of Assisi. The little black pig was always decorated with
a red ribbon. Gertrude Stein had always liked little pigs and she always
said that in her old age she expected to wander up and down the hills
of Assisi with a little black pig. She now wanders about the hills of the
Ain with a large white dog and a small black one, so I suppose that does
as well.
She was always fond of pigs, and because of this Picasso made and
gave her some charming drawings of the prodigal son among the pigs.
And one delightful study of pigs all by themselves. It was about this
time too that he made for her the tiniest of ceiling decorations on a tiny
wooden panel and it was an hommage a Gertrude with women and
angels bringing fruits and trumpeting. For years she had this tacked
to the ceiling over her bed. It was only after the war that it was put
upon the wall.
But to return to the beginning of my life in Paris. It was based upon
the rue de Fleurus and the Saturday evenings and it was like a kaleido-
scope slowly turning.
What happened in those early years. A great deal happened.
As I said when I became an habitual visitor at the rue de Fleurus the
Picassos were once more together, Pablo and Fernande. That summer
they went again to Spain and he came back with some Spanish land-
1907-1914 75
scapes and one may say that these landscapes, two of them still at the
rue de Fleurus and the other one in Moscow in the collection that
Stchoukine founded and that is now national property, were the begin-
ning of cubism. In these there was no african sculpture influence. There
was very evidently a strong Cezanne influence, particularly the influence
of the late Cezanne water colours, the cutting up the sky not in cubes
but in spaces.
But the essential thing, the treatment of the houses was essentially
Spanish and therefore essentially Picasso. In these pictures he first em-
phasised the way of building in Spanish villages, the line of the houses
not following the landscape but cutting across and into the landscape,
becoming undistinguishable in the landscape by cutting across the land-
scape. It was the principle of the camouflage of the guns and the ships
in the war. The first year of the war, Picasso and Eve, with whom he was
living then, Gertrude Stein and myself, were walking down the boule-
vard Raspail a cold winter evening. There is nothing in the world colder
than the Raspail on a cold winter evening, we used to call it the retreat
from Moscow. All of a. sudden down the street came some big cannon,
the first any of us had seen painted, that is camouflaged. Pablo stopped,
he was spell-bound. C'est nous qui avons fait £a, he said, it is we that
have created that, he said. And he was right, he had. From Cezanne
through him they had come to that. His foresight was justified.
But to go back to the three landscapes. When they were first put up
on the wall naturally everybody objected. As it happened he and Fer-
nande had taken some photographs of the villages which he had painted
and he had given copies of these photographs to Gertrude Stein. When
people said that the few cubes in the landscapes looked like nothing but
cubes, Gertrude Stein would laugh and say, if you had objected to these
landscapes as being too realistic there would be some point in your ob-
jection. And she would show them the photographs and really the pic-
tures as she rightly said might be declared to be too photographic a copy
of nature. Years after Elliot Paul at Gertrude Stein's suggestion had a
photograph of the painting by Picasso and the photographs of the vil-
lage reproduced on the same page in transition and it was extraordinarily
interesting. This then was really the beginning of cubism. The colour
too was characteristically Spanish, the pale silver yellow with the faintest
suggestion of green, the colour afterwards so well known in Picasso's
cubist pictures, as well as in those of his followers.
76 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
Gertrude Stein always says that cubism is a purely Spanish conception
and only Spaniards can be cubists and that the only real cubism is that o£
Picasso and Juan Gris. Picasso created it and Juan Gris permeated it
with his clarity and his exaltation. To understand this one has only to
read the life and death of Juan Gris by Gertrude Stein, written upon
the death of one of her two dearest friends, Picasso and Juan Gris, both
Spaniards.
She always says that americans can understand Spaniards. That they
are the only two western nations that can realise abstraction. That in
americans it expresses itself by disembodiedness, in literature and ma-
chinery, in Spain by ritual so abstract that it does not connect itself with
anything but ritual.
I always remember Picasso saying disgustedly apropos of some ger-
mans who said they liked bull-fights, they would, he said angrily, they
like bloodshed. To a Spaniard it is not bloodshed, it is ritual.
Americans, so Gertrude Stein says, are like Spaniards, they are abstract
and cruel. They are not brutal they are cruel. They have no close con-
tact with the earth such as most europeans have. Their materialism is
not the materialism of existence, of possession, it is the materialism of
action and abstraction. And so cubism is Spanish.
We were very much struck, the first time Gertrude Stein and I went
to Spain, which was a year or so after the beginning of cubism, to see
how naturally cubism was made in Spain. In the shops in Barcelona in-
stead of post cards they had square little frames and inside it was placed
a cigar, a real one, a pipe, a bit of handkerchief etcetera, all absolutely
the arrangement of many a cubist picture and helped out by cut paper
representing other objects. That is the modern note that in Spain had
been done for centuries.
Picasso in his early cubist pictures used printed letters as did Juan
Gris to force the painted surface to measure up to something rigid, and
the rigid thing was the printed letter. Gradually instead of using the
printed thing they painted the letters and all was lost, it was only Juan
Gris who could paint with such intensity a printed letter that it still
made the rigid contrast. And so cubism came little by little but it came.
It was in these days that the intimacy between Braque and Picasso
grew. It was in these days that Juan Gris, a raw rather effusive youth
came from Madrid to Paris and began to call Picasso cher maitre to
Picasso's great annoyance. It was apropos of this that Picasso used to
1907-1914 77
address Braque as cher maitre, passing on the joke, and I am sorry to
say that some foolish people have taken this joke to mean that Picasso
looked up to Braque as a master.
But I am once more running far ahead of those early Paris days when
I first knew Fernande and Pablo.
In those days then only the three landscapes had been painted and he
was beginning to paint some heads that seemed cut out in planes, also
long loaves of bread.
At this time Matisse, the school still going on, was really beginning
to be fairly well known, so much so that to everybody's great excitement
Bernheim jeune, a very middle class firm indeed, was offering him a
contract to take all his work at a very good price. It was an exciting
moment.
This was happening because of the influence of a man .named
Feneon. II est tres fin/ said Matisse, much impressed by Feneon.
Feneon was a journalist, a french journalist who had invented the thing
called a feuilleton en deux lignes, that is to say he was the first one to hit
off the news of the day in two lines. He looked like a caricature of Uncle
Sam made french and he had been painted standing in front of a curtain
in a circus picture by Toulouse-Lautrec.
And now the Bernheims, how or wherefor I do not know, taking
Feneon into their employ, were going to connect themselves with the
new generation of painters.
Something happened, at any rate this contract did not last long, but
for all that it changed the fortunes of Matisse. He now had an established
position. He bought a house and some land in Clamart and he started
to move out there. Let me describe the house as I saw it.
This home in Clamart was very comfortable, to be sure the bath-room,
which the family much appreciated from long contact with americans,
although it must be said that the Matisses had always been and always
were scrupulously neat and clean, was on the ground floor adjoining
the dining room. But that was alright, and is and was a french custom,
in french houses. It gave more privacy to a bath-room to have it on the
ground floor. Not so long ago in going over the new house Braque was
building the bath-room was again below, this time underneath the din-
ing room. When we said, but why, they said because being nearer the
furnace it would be warmer.
The grounds at Clamart were large and the garden was what Matisse
78 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
between pride and chagrin called un petit Luxembourg. There was also
a glass forcing house for flowers. Later they had begonias in them that
grew smaller and smaller. Beyond were lilacs and still beyond a big de-
mountable studio. They liked it enormously. Madame Matisse with
simple recklessness went out every day to look at it and pick flowers,
keeping a cab waiting for her. In those days only millionaires kept cabs
waiting and then only very occasionally.
They moved out and were very comfortable and soon the enormous
studio was filled with enormous statues and enormous pictures. It was
that period of Matisse. Equally soon he found Clamart so beautiful that
he could not go home to it, that is when he came into Paris to his hour
of sketching from the nude, a thing he had done every afternoon of his
life ever since the beginning of things, and he came in every afternoon.
His school no longer existed, the government had taken over the old
convent to make a Lycee of it and the school fcad come to an end.
These were the beginning of very prosperous days for the Matisses.
They went to Algeria and they went to Tangiers and their devoted
german pupils gave them Rhine wines and a very fine black police dog,
the first of the breed that any of us had seen.
And then Matisse had a great show of his pictures in Berlin. I remem-
ber so well one spring day, it was a lovely day and we were to lunch at
Clamart with the Matisses. When we got there they were all standing
around an enormous packing case with its top off. We went up and
joined them and there in the packing case was the largest laurel wreath
that had ever been made, tied with a beautiful red ribbon. Matisse
showed Gertrude Stein a card that had been in it. It said on it, To Henri
Matisse, Triumphant on the Battlefield of Berlin, and was signed
Thomas Whittemore. Thomas Whittemore was a bostonian archeologist
and professor at Tufts College, a great admirer of Matisse and this
was his tribute. Said Matisse, still more rueful, but I am not dead yet.
Madame Matisse, the shock once over said, but Henri look, and leaning
down she plucked a leaf and tasted it, it is real laurel, think how good
it will be in soup. And, said she still further brightening, the ribbon will
do wonderfully for a long time as hair ribbon for Margot.
The Matisses stayed in Clamart more or less until the war. During this
period they and Gertrude Stein were seeing less and less of each other.
Then after the war broke out they came to the house a good deal. They
were lonesome and troubled, Matisse's family in Saint-Quentin, in the
1907-1914 79
north, were within the german lines and his brother was a hostage. It
was Madame Matisse who taught me how to knit woollen gloves. She
made them wonderfully neatly and rapidly and I learned to do so too.
Then Matisse went to live in Nice and in one way and another, although
remaining perfectly good friends, Gertrude Stein and the Matisses never
see each other.
The Saturday evenings in those early days were frequented by many
hungarians, quite a number of germans, quite a few mixed nationalities,
a very thin sprinkling of americans and practically no english. These
were to commence later, and with them came aristocracy of all countries
and even some royalty.
Among the germans who used to come in those early days was Pascin.
He was at that time a thin brilliant-looking creature, he already had a
considerable reputation as maker of neat little caricatures in Simplicis-
simus, the most lively of the german comic papers. The other germans
told strange stories of him. That he had been brought up in a house of
prostitution of unknown and probably royal birth, etcetera.
He and Gertrude Stein had not met since those early days but a few
years ago they saw each other at the vernissage of a young dutch painter
Kristians Tonny who had been a pupil of Pascin and in whose work
Gertrude Stein was then interested. They liked meeting each other and
had a long talk.
Pascin was far away the most amusing of the germans although I can-
not quite say that because there was Uhde.
Uhde was undoubtedly well born, he was not a blond german, he was
a tallish thin dark man with a high forehead and an excellent quick wit.
When he first came to Paris he went to every antiquity shop and bric-a-
brac shop in the town in order to see what he could find. He did not find
much, he found what purported to be an Ingres, he found a few very
early Picassos, but perhaps he found other things. At any rate when the
war broke out he was supposed to have been one of the super spies and
to have belonged to the german staff.
He was said to have been seen near the french war office after the
declaration of war, undoubtedly he and a friend had a summer hpme
very near what was afterward the Hindenburg line. Well at any rate he
was very pleasant and very amusing. He it was who was the first to com-
mercialise the douanier Rousseau's pictures. He kept a kind of private
art shop. It was here that Braque and Picasso went to see him in their
80 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
newest and roughest clothes and in their best Cirque Medrano fashion
kept up a constant fire of introducing each other to him and asking each
other to introduce each other.
Uhde used often to come Saturday evening accompanied by very tall
blond good-looking young men who clicked their heels and bowed and
then all evening stood solemnly at attention. They made a very effective
background to the rest of the crowd. I remember one evening when the
son of the great scholar Breal and his very amusing clever wife brought
a Spanish guitarist who wanted to come and play. Uhde and his body-
guard were the background and it came on to be a lively evening, the
guitarist played and Manolo was there. It was the only time I ever saw
Manolo the sculptor, by that time a legendary -figure in Paris. Picasso
very lively undertook to dance a southern Spanish dance not too respect-
able, Gertrude Stein's brother did the dying dance of Isadora, .it was
very lively, Fernande and Pablo got into a discussion about Frederic of
the Lapin Agile and apaches. Fernande contended that the apaches were
better than the artists and her forefinger went up in the air. Picasso said,
yes apaches of course have their universities, artists do not. Fernande got
angry and shook him and said, you think you are witty, but you are only
stupid. He ruefully showed that she had shaken off a button and she
very angry said, and you, your only claim to distinction is that you are a
precocious child. Things were not in those days going any too well be-
tween them, it was just -about the time that they were quitting the rue
Ravignan to live in an apartment in the boulevard Clichy, where they
were to have a servant and to be prosperous.
But to return to Uhde and first to Manolo. Manolo was perhaps Pi-
casso's oldest friend. He was a strange Spaniard. He, so the legend said,
was the brother of one of the greatest pickpockets in Madrid. Manolo
himself was gentle and admirable. He was the only person in Paris with
whom Picasso spoke Spanish. All the other Spaniards had french wives
or french mistresses and having so much the habit of speaking french
they always talked french to each other. This always seemed very strange
to me. However Picasso and Manolo always talked Spanish to each other.
There were many stories about Manolo, he had always loved and he
had always lived under the protection of the saints. They told the story
of how when he first came to Paris he entered the first church he saw
•
and there he saw a woman bring a chair to some one and receive money.
1907-1914 81
So Manolo did the same, he went into many churches and always gave
everybody a chair and always got money, until one day he was caught
by the woman whose business it was and whose chairs they were and
there was trouble.
He once was hard up and he proposed to his friends to take lottery
tickets for one of his statues, everybody agreed, and then when every-
body met they found they all had the same number. When they re-
proached him he explained that he did this because he knew his friends
would be unhappy if they did not all have the same number. He was
supposed to have left Spain while he was doing his military service, that
is to say he was in the cavalry and he went across the border, and sold
his horse and his accoutrement, and so had enough money to come to
Paris and be a sculptor. He once was left for a few days in the house of a
friend of Gauguin. When the owner of the house came back all his Gau-
guin souvenirs and all his Gauguin sketches were gone. Manolo had sold
them to Vollard and Vollard had to give them back. Nobody minded.
Manolo was like a sweet crazy religiously uplifted Spanish beggar and
everybody was fond of him. Morcas, the greek poet, who in those days
was a very well known figure in Paris was very fond of him and used
to take him with him for company whenever he had anything to do.
Manolo always went in hopes of getting a meal but he used to be left
ito wait while Moreas ate. Manolo was always patient and always hopeful
although Moreas was as well known then as Guillaume Apollinaire was
later, to pay rarely or rather not at all.
Manolo used to make statues for joints in Montmartre in return for
meals etcetera, until Alfred Stieglitz heard of him and showed his things
in New York and sold some of them and then Manolo returned to the
french frontier, Ceret and there he has lived ever since, turning night
into day, he and his Catalan wife.
But Uhde. Uhde one Saturday evening presented his fiancee to Ger-
trude Stein. Uhde's morals were not all that they should be and as his
fiancee seemed a very well to do and very conventional young woman
we were all surprised. But it turned out that it was an arranged mar-
riage. Uhde wished to respectabilise himself and she wanted to come
into possession of her inheritance, which she could only do upon mar-
riage. Shortly after she married Uhde and shortly after they were
divorced. She then married Delaunay the painter who was just then
82 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
coming into the foreground. He was the founder of the first of the many
vulgarisations of the cubist idea, the painting of houses out of plumb,
what was called the catastrophic school.
Delaunay was a big blond frenchman. He had a lively little mother.
She used to come to the rue de Fleurus with old vicomtes who looked
exactly like one's youthful idea of what an old french marquis should
look like. These always left their cards and then wrote a solemn note of
thanks and never showed in any way how entirely out of place they
must have felt. Delaunay himself was amusing. He was fairly able and
inordinately ambitious. He was always asking how old Picasso had been
when he had painted a certain picture. When he was told he always said,
oh I am not as old as that yet. I will do as much when I am that age.
As a matter of fact he did progress very rapidly. He used to come a
great deal to the rue de Fleurus. Gertrude Stein used to delight in him.
He was funny and he painted one rather fine picture, the three graces
standing in front of Paris, an enormous picture in which he combined
everybody's ideas and added a certain french clarity and freshness of his
own. It had a rather remarkable atmosphere and it had a great success.
After that his pictures lost all quality, they grew big and empty or small
and empty. I remember his bringing one of these small ones to the house,
saying, look I am bringing you a small picture, a jewel. It is small, said
Gertrude Stein, but is it a jewel.
It was Delaunay who married the ex-wife of Uhde and they kept up
quite an establishment. They took up Guillaume Apollinaire and it was
he who taught them how to cook and how to live. Guillaume was ex-
traordinary. Nobody but Guillaume, it was the italian in Guillaume,
Stella the New York painter could do the same thing in his early youth
in Paris, could make fun of his hosts, make fun of their guests, make
fun of their food and spur them to always greater and greater effort.
It was Guillaume's first opportunity to travel, he went to Germany
with Delaunay and thoroughly enjoyed himself.
Uhde used to delight in telling how his former wife came to his
house one day and dilating upon Delaunay 's future career, explained to
him that he should abandon Picasso and Braque, the past, and devote
himself to the cause of Delaunay, the future. Picasso and Braque at this
time it must be remembered were not yet thirty years old. Uhde told
everybody this story with a great many witty additions and always add-
ing, I tell you all this sans discretion, that is tell it to everybody.
1907-1914 83
The other german who came to the house in those days was a dull one.
He is, I understand a very important man now in his own country and
he was a most faithful friend to Matisse, at all times, even during the
war. He was the bulwark of the Matisse school. Matisse was not always
or indeed often very kind to him. All women loved him, so it was sup-
posed. He was a stocky Don Juan. I remember one big Scandinavian
who loved him and who would never come in on Saturday evening but
stood in the court and whenever the door opened for some one to come
in or go out you could see her smile in the dark of the court like the
smile of the Cheshire cat. He was always bothered by Gertrude Stein.
She did and bought such strange things. He never dared to criticise any-
thing to her but to me he would say, and you, Mademoiselle, do you,
pointing to the despised object, do you find that beautiful.
Once when we were in Spain, in fact the first time we went to Spain,
Gertrude Stein had insisted upon buying in Cuenca a brand new enor-
mous turtle made of Rhine stones. She had very lovely old jewellery, but
with great satisfaction to herself she was wearing this turtle as a clasp.
Purrmann this time was dumbfounded. He got me into a corner. That
jewel, he said, that Miss Stein is wearing, are those stones real.
Speaking of Spain also reminds me that once we were in a crowded
restaurant. Suddenly in the end of the room a tall form stood up and a
man bowed solemnly at Gertrude Stein who as solemnly replied. It was
a stray hungarian from Saturday evening, surely.
There was another german whom I must admit we both liked. This
was much later, about nineteen twelve. He too was a dark tall german.
He talked english, he was a friend of Marsden Hartley whom we liked
very much, and we liked his german friend, I cannot say that we did not.
He used to describe himself as the rich son of a not so rich father. In
other words he had a large allowance from a moderately poor father
who was a university professor. Ronnebeck was charming and he was
always invited to dinner. He was at dinner one evening when Berenson
the famous critic of Italian art was there. Ronnebeck had brought with
him some photographs of pictures by Rousseau. He had left them in the
atelier and we were all in the dining room. Everybody began to talk
about Rousseau. Berenson was puzzled, but Rousseau, Rosseau, he said,
Rousseau was an honourable painter but why all this excitement. Ah,
he said with a sigh, fashions change, that I know, but really I never
thought that Rousseau would come to be the fashion for the young.
84 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
Berenson had a tendency to be supercilious and so everybody let him go
on and on. Finally Ronnebeck said gently, but perhaps Mr. Berenson,
you have never heard of the great Rousseau, the douanier Rousseau. No,
admitted Berenson, he hadn't, and later when he saw the photographs he
understood less than ever and was fairly fussed. Mabel Dodge who was
present, said, but Berenson, you must remember that art is inevitable.
That, said Berenson recovering himself, you understand, you being your-
self a femrhe fatale.
We were fond of Ronnebeck and beside the first time he came to the
house he quoted some of Gertrude Stein's recent work to her. She had
loaned some manuscript to Marsden Hartley. It was the first time that
anybody had quoted her work to her and she naturally liked it. He also
made a translation into german of some of the portraits she was writing
at that time and thus brought her her first international reputation.
That however is not quite true, Roche the faithful Roche had introduced
some*young germans to Three Lives and they were already under its
spell. However Ronnebeck was charming and we were very fond of
him.
Ronnebeck was a sculptor, he did small full figure portraits and was
doing them very well, he was in love with an american girl who was
studying music. He liked France and all french things and he was very
fond of us. We all separated as usual for the summer. He said he had a
very amusing summer before him. He had a commission to do a portrait
figure of a countess and her two sons, the little counts and he was to
spend the summer doing this in the home of the countess who had a
magnificent place on the shores of the Baltic.
When we all came back that winter Ronnebeck was different. In the
first place he came back with lots of photographs of ships of the german
navy and insisted upon showing them to us. We were not interested.
Gertrude Stein said, of course, Ronnebeck, you have a navy, of course,
we americans have a navy, everybody has a navy, but to anybody but
the navy, one big ironclad looks very much like any other, don't be silly.
He was different though. He had had a good time. He had photos of
himself with all the counts and there was also one with the crown prince
of Germany who was a great friend of the countess. The winter, it was
the winter of 1913-1914, wore on. All the usual things happened and we
gave as usual some dinner parties. I have forgotten what the occasion of
one was but we thought Ronnebeck would do excellently for it. We in-
1907-1914 85
vited him. He sent word that he had to go to Munich for two days but
he would travel at night and get back for the dinner party. This he did
and was delightful as he always was.
Pretty soon he went off on a trip to the north, to visit the cathedral
towns. When he came back he brought us a series of photographs of all
these northern towns seen from above. What are these, Gertrude Stein
asked. Oh, he said, I thought you would be interested, they are views I
have taken of all the cathedral towns. I took them from the tip top of
the steeples and I thought you would be interested because see, he said,
they look exactly like the pictures of the followers of Delaunay, what
you call the earthquake school, he said turning to me. We thanked him
and thought no more about it. Later when during the war I found them,
I tore them up in a rage.
Then we all began to talk about our summer plans. Gertrude Stein
was to go to London in July to see John Lane to sign the contract for
Three Lives. Ronnebeck said, why don't you come to Germany instead
or rather before or immediately after, he said. Because, said Gertrude
Stein, as you know I don't like germans. Yes I know, said Ronnebeck, I
know, but you like me and you would have such a wonderful time.
They would be so interested and it would mean so much to them, do
come, he said. No, said Gertrude Stein, I like you alright but I don't
like germans.
We went to England in July and when we got there Gertrude Stein
had a letter from Ronnebeck saying that he still awfully wanted us to
come to Germany but since we wouldn't had we not better spend the
summer in England or perhaps in Spain but not as we had planned come
back to Paris. That was naturally the end. I tell the story for what it is
worth.
When I first came to Paris there was a very small sprinkling of amer-
icans Saturday evenings, this sprinkling grew gradually more abundant
but before I tell about americans I must tell all about the banquet to
Rousseau.
In the beginning of my stay in Paris a friend and I were living as I
have already said in a little apartment on the rue Notre-Dame-des-
Champs. I was no longer taking french lessons from Fernande because
she and Picasso were together again but she was not an infrequent vis-
itor. Autumn had come and I can remember it very well because I had
bought my first winter Paris hat. It was a very fine hat of black velvet,
86 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
a big hat with a brilliant yellow fantaisie. Even Fernande gave it her
approval.
Fernande was lunching with us one day and she said that there was
going to be a banquet given for Rousseau and that she was giving it.
She counted up the number of the invited. We were included. Who was
Rousseau. I did not know but that really did not matter since it was to
be a banquet and everybody was to go, and we were invited.
Next Saturday evening at the rue de Fleurus everybody was talking
about the banquet to Rousseau and then I found out that Rousseau was
the painter whose picture I had seen in that first independent. It ap-
peared that Picasso had recently found in Montmartre a large portrait
of a woman by Rousseau, that he had bought it and that this festivity
was in honour of the purchase and the painter. It was going to be very
wonderful.
Fernande told me a great deal about the menu. There was to be riz a
la Valenciennes, Fernande had learnt how to cook this on her last trip
to Spain, and then she had ordered, I forget now what it was that she
had ordered, but she had ordered a great deal at Felix Potin, the chain
store of groceries where they made prepared dishes. Everybody was ex-
cited. It was Guillaume Apollinaire, as I remember, who knowing Rous-
seau very well had induced him to promise to come and was to bring
him and everybody was to write poetry and songs and it was to be very
rigolo, a favourite Montmartre word meaning a jokeful amusement. We
were all to meet at the cafe at the foot of the rue Ravignan and to have
an aperitif and then go up to Picasso's atelier and have dinner. I put on
my new hat and we all went to Montmartre and all met at the cafe.
As Gertrude Stein and I came into the cafe there seemed to be a great
many people present and in the midst was a tall thin girl who with her
long thin arms extended was swaying forward and back. I did not know
what she was doing, it was evidently not gymnastics, it was bewildering
but she looked very enticing. What is that, I whispered to Gertrude Stein.
Oh that is Marie Laurencin, I am afraid she had been taking too many
preliminary aperitifs. Is she the old lady that Fernande told me about
who makes noises like animals and annoys Pablo. She annoys Pablo al-
right but she is a very young lady and she has had too much, said Ger-
trude Stein going in. Just then there was a violent noise at the door of
the cafe and Fernande appeared very large, very excited and very angry.
Felix Potin, said she, has not sent the dinner. Everybody seemed over-
1907-1914 87
come at these awful tidings but I, in my american way said to Fernande,
come quickly, let us telephone. In those days in Paris one did not tele-
phone and never to a provision store. But Fernande consented and off
we went. Everywhere we went there was either no telephone or it was
not working, finally we got one that worked but Felix Potin was closed
or closing and it was deaf to our appeals. Fernande was completely upset §
but finally I persuaded her to tell me just what we were to have had
from Felix Potin and then in one little shop and another little shop in
Montmartre we found substitutes, Fernande finally announcing that she
had made so much riz a la Valenciennes that it would take the place of
everything and it did.
When we were back at the cafe almost everybody who had been there
had gone and some new ones had come, Fernande told them all to come
along. As we toiled up the hill we saw in front of us the whole crowd.
In the middle was Marie Laurencin supported on the one side by Ger-
trude Stein and on the other by Gertrude Stein's brother and she was
falling first into one pair of arms and then into another, her voice always
high and sweet and her arms always thin graceful and long. Guillaume
of course was not there, he was' to bring Rousseau himself after every
one was seated.
Fernande passed this slow moving procession, I following her and
we arrived at the atelier. It was rather impressive. They had gotten tres-
tles, carpenter's trestles, and on them had placed boards and all around
these boards were benches. At the head of the table was the new acquisi-
tion, the Rousseau, draped in flags and wreaths and flanked on either
side by big statues, I do not remember what statues. It was very mag-
nificent and very festive. The riz a la Valenciennes was presumably
cooking below in Max Jacob's studio. Max not being on good terms with
Picasso was not present but they used his studio for the rice and for the
men's overcoats. The ladies were to put theirs in the front studio which
had been Van Dongen's in his spinach days and now belonged to a
frenchman by the name of Vaillant. This was the studio which was later
t6 be Juan Gris'.
I had just time to deposit my hat and admire the arrangements, Fer-
nande violently abusing Marie Laurencin all the time, when the crowd
arrived. Fernande large and imposing, barred the way, she was not going
to have her party spoiled by Marie Laurencin. This was a serious party,
a serious banquet for Rousseau and neither she nor Pablo would tolerate
88 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
such conduct. Of course Pablo, all this time, was well out of sight in the
rear. Gertrude Stein remonstrated, she said half in english half in french,
that she would be hanged if after the struggle of getting Marie Lauren-
cin up that terrific hill it was going to be for nothing. No indeed and
beside she reminded Fernande that Guillaume and Rousseau would be
along any minute and it was necessary that every one should be decor-
ously seated before that event. By this time Pablo had made his way to
the front and he joined in and said, yes yes, and Fernande yielded. She
was always a little afraid of Guillaume Apollinaire, of his solemnity and
of his wit, and they all came in. Everybody sat down.
Everybody sat down and everybody began to eat rice and other things,
that is as soon as Guillaume Apollinaire and Rqusseau came in which
they did very presently and were wildly acclaimed. How well I remem-
ber their coming. Rousseau a little small colourless frenchman with a
little beard, like any number of frenchmen one saw everywhere. Guil-
laume Apollinaire with finely cut florid features, dark hair and a beauti-
ful complexion. Everybody was presented and everybody sat down again.
Guillaume slipped into a seat beside Marie Laurencin. At the sight of
Guillaume, Marie who had become comparatively calm seated next to
Gertrude Stein, broke out again in wild movements and outcries. Guil-
laume got her out of the door and downstairs and after a decent interval
they came back Marie a little bruised but sober. By this time everybody
had eaten everything and poetry began. Oh yes, before this Frederic of
the Lapin Agile and the University of Apaches had wandered in with
his usual companion a donkey, was given a drink and wandered out
again. Then a little later some Italian street singers hearing of the party
came in. Fernande rose at the end of the table and flushed and her fore-
finger straight into the air said it was not that kind of a party, and they
were promptly thrown out.
Who was there. We were there and Salmon, Andre Salmon, then a
rising young poet and journalist, Pichot and Germaine Pichot, Braque
and perhaps Marcelle Braque but this I do not remember, I know that
there was talk of her at that time, the Raynals, the Ageros the false Greco
and his wife, and several other pairs whol did not know and do not
remember and Vaillant, a very amiable ordinary young frenchman who
had the front studio.
The ceremonies began. Guillaume Apollinaire gdt up and made a sol-
emn eulogy, I do not remember at all what he said but it ended up
1907-1914 89
with a poem he had written and which he half chanted and in which
everybody joined in the refrain, La peinture de ce Rousseau. Somebody
else then, possibly Raynal, I don't remember, got up and there were
toasts, and then all of a sudden Andre Salmon who was sitting next to
my friend and solemnly discoursing of literature and travels, leaped upon
the by no means solid table and poured out an extemporaneous eulogy
and poem. At the end he seized a big glass and drank what was in it,
then promptly went off his head, being completely drunk, and began to
fight. The men all got hold of him, the statues tottered, Braque, a great
big chap, got hold of a statue in either arm and stood there holding
them while Gertrude Stein's brother another big chap, protected little
Rousseau and his violin from harm. The others with Picasso leading be-
cause Picasso though small is very strong, dragged Salmon into the front
atelier and locked him in. Everybody came back and sat down.
Thereafter the evening was peaceful. Marie Laurencin sang in a thin
voice some charming old norman songs. The wife of Agero sang some
charming old limousin songs, Pichot danced a wonderful religious Span-
ish dance ending in making of himself a crucified Christ upon the floor.
Guillaume Apollinaire solemnly approached myself and my friend and
asked us to sing some of the native songs of the red indians. We did
not either of us feel up to that to the great regret of Guillaume and all
the company. Rousseau blissful and gentle played the violin and told us
about the plays he had written and his memories of Mexico. It was all
very peaceful and about three o'clock in the morning we all went into
the atelier where Salmon had been deposited and where we had left our
hats and coats to get them to go home. There on the couch lay Salmon
peacefully sleeping and surrounding him, half chewed, were a box of
matches, a petit bleu and my yellow fantaisie. Imagine my feelings even
at three o'clock in the morning. However, Salmon woke up very charm-
ing and very polite and we all went out into the street together. All of
a sudden with a wild yell Salmon rushed down the hill.
Gertrude Stein and her brother, my friend and I, all in one cab, took
Rousseau home.
It was about a month later that one dark Paris winter afternoon I was
hurrying home and felt myself being followed. I hurried and hurried and
the footsteps drew nearer and I heard, mademoiselle, mademoiselle. I
turned. It was Rousseau. Oh mademoiselle, he said, you should not be
out alone after dark, may I see you home. Which he did.
90 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
It was not long after this that Kahnweiler came to Paris. Kahnweiler
was a german married to a frenchwoman and they had lived for many
years in England. Kahnweiler had been in England in business, saving
money to carry out a dream of some day having a picture shop in Paris.
The time had come and he started a neat small gallery in the rue Vignon.
He felt his way a little and then completely threw in his lot with the
cubist group. There were difficulties at first, Picasso always suspicious
did not want to go too far with him. Fernande did the bargaining with
Kahnweiler but finally they all realised the genuineness of his interest
and his faith, and that he could and would market their work.- They all
made contracts with him and until the war he did everything for them
all. The afternoons with the group coming in and out of his shop were
for Kahnweiler really afternoons with Vasari. He believed in them
and their future greatness. It was only the year before the war that he
added Juan Gris. It was just two months before the outbreak of the war
that Gertrude Stein saw the first Juan Gris paintings- at Kahnweiler's
and bought three of them.
Picasso always says that he used in those days to tell Kahnweiler that
he should become a french citizen, that war would come and there would
be the devil to pay. Kahnweiler always said he would when he had
passed the military age but that he naturally did not want to do military
service a second time. The war came, Kahnweiler was in Switzerland
with his family on his vacation and he could not come back. All his pos-
sessions were sequestrated.
The auction sale by the government of Kahnweiler's pictures, prac-
tically all the cubist pictures of the three years before the war, was the
first occasion after the war where everybody of the old crowd met. There
had been quite a conscious effort on the part of all the older merchants,
now that the war was over, to kill cubism. The expert for the sale, who
was a well known picture dealer, had avowed this as his intention. He
would keep the prices down as low as possible and discourage the public
as much as possible. How could the artists defend themselves.
We happened to be with the Braques a day or two before the public
show of pictures for the sale and Marcelle Braque, Braque's wife, told us
that they had come to a decision. Picasso and Juan Gris could do noth-
ing they were Spaniards, and this was a french government sale. Marie
Laurencin was technically a german, Lipschitz was a russian at that
time not a popular thing to be. Braque a frenchman, who had won the
1907-1914 91
croix de guerre in a charge, who had been made an officer and had won
the legion d'honneur and had had a bad head wound could do what
he pleased. He had a technical reason too for picking a quarrel with the
expert. He had sent in a list of people likely to buy his pictures, a privi-
lege always accorded to an artist whose pictures are to be publicly sold,
and catalogues had not been sent to these people. When we arrived
Braque had already done his duty. We came in just at the end of the
fray. There was a great excitement.
Braque had approached the expert and told him that he had neglected
his obvious duties. The expert had replied that he had done and would
do as he pleased and called Braque a norman pig. Braque had hit him.
Braque is a big man and the expert is not and Braque tried not to hit
hard but nevertheless the expert fell. The police came in and they were
taken oil to the police station. There they told their story. Braque of
course as a hero of the war was treated with all due respect, and when
he spoke to the expert using the familiar thou the expert completely lost
his temper and his head and was publicly rebuked by the magistrate.
Just after it was over Matisse came in and wanted to know what had
happened and was happening, Gertrude Stein told him. Matisse said,
and it was a Matisse way to say it, Braque a raison, celui-la a vole la
France, et on sait bien ce que c'est que voler la France.
As a matter of fact the buyers were frightened off and all the pictures
except those of Derain went for little. Poor Juan Gris whose pictures
went for very little tried to be grave. They after all did bring an honour-
able price, he said to Gertrude Stein, but he was sad.
Fortunately Kahnweiler, who had not fought against France, was al-
lowed to come back the next year. The others no longer needed him
but Juan needed him desperately and Kahnweiler's loyalty and gener-
osity to Juan Gris all those hard years can only be matched by Juan's
loyalty and generosity when at last just before his death and he had be-
come famous tempting offers from other dealers were made to him.
Kahnweiler coming to Paris and taking on commercially the cause of
the cubists made a great difference to all of them. Their present and
future were secure.
The Picassos moved from the old studio in the rue Ravignan to an
apartment in the boulevard Clichy. Fernande began to buy furniture
and have a servant and the servant of course made a souffle. It was a nice
apartment with lots of sunshine. On the whole however Fernande was
92 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
not quite as happy as she had been. There were a great many people
there and even afternoon tea. Braque was there a great deal, it was the
height of the intimacy between Braque and Picasso, it was at that time
they first began to put musical instruments into their pictures. It- was
also the beginning of Picasso's making constructions. He made still lifes
of objects and photographed them. He made paper constructions later,
he gave one of these to Gertrude Stein. It is perhaps the only one left in
existence.
This was also the time when I first heard of Poiret. He had a house-
boat on the Seine and he had given a party on it and he had invited
Pablo and Fernande. He gave Fernande a handsome rose-coloured scarf
with gold fringe and he also gave her a spun glass fantaisie to put on a
hat, an entirely new idea in those days. This she gave to me and I wore
it on a little straw pointed cap for years after. I may even have it now.
Then there was the youngest of the cubists. I never knew his name.
He was doing his military service and was destined for diplomacy. How
he drifted in and whether he painted I do not know. All I know is that
he was known as the youngest of the cubists.
Fernande had at this time a new friend of whom she often spoke to
me. This was Eve who was living with Marcoussis. And one evening all
four of them came to the rue de Fleurus, Pablo, Fernande, Marcoussis
and Eve. It was the only time we ever saw Martoussis until many many
years later.
I could perfectly understand Fernande's liking for Eve. As I said Fer-
nande's great heroine was Evelyn Thaw, small and negative. Here was
a little french Evelyn Thaw, small and perfect.
Not long after this Picasso came one day and told Gertrude Stein that
he had decided to take an atelier in the rue Ravignan. He could work
better there. He could not get back his old one but he took one on the
lower floor. One day we went to see him there. He was not in and
Gertrude Stein as a joke left her visiting card. In a few days we went
again and Picasso was at work on a picture on which was written ma
jolie and at the lower corner painted in was Gertrude Stein's visiting
card. As we went away Gertrude Stein said, Fernande is certainly not
ma jolie, I wonder who it is. In a few days we knew. Pablo had gone off
with Eve.
This was in the spring. They all had the habit of going to Ceret near
Perpignan for the summer probably on account of Manolo, and they all
1907-1914 93
in spite of everything went there again. Fernande was there with the
Pichots and Eve was there with Pablo. There were some redoubtable
battles and then everybody came back to Paris.
One evening, we too had come back, Picasso came in. He and Ger-
trude Stein had a long talk alone. It was Pablo, she said when she came
in from having bade him goodbye, and he said a marvellous thing about
Fernande, he said her beauty always held him but he could not stand
any of her little ways. She further added that Pablo and Eve were now
settled on the boulevard Raspail and we would go and see them
to-morrow.
In the meanwhile Gertrude Stein had received a letter from Fernande,
very dignified, written with the reticence of a frenchwoman. She said
that she wished to tell Gertrude Stein that she understood perfectly that
the friendship had always been with Pablo and that although Gertrude
had always shown her every mark of sympathy and affection now that
she and Pablo were separated, it was naturally impossible that in the
future there should be any intercourse between them because the friend-
ship having been with Pablo there could of course be no question of a
choice. That she would always remember their intercourse with pleasure
and that she would permit herself, if ever she were in need, to throw
herself upon Gertrude's generosity.
And so Picasso left Montmartre never to return.
When I first came to the rue de Fleurus Gertrude Stein was correcting
the proofs of Three Lives. I was soon helping her with this and before
very long the book was published. I asked her .to let me subscribe to
%Romeike's clipping bureau, the advertisement for Romeike in the San
Francisco Argonaut having been one of the romances of my childhood.
Soon the clippings began to come in.
It is rather astonishing the number of newspapers that noticed this
book, printed privately and by a perfectly unknown person. The notice
that pleased Gertrude Stein most was in the Kansas City Star. She often
asked then and in later years who it was who might have written it but
she never found out. It was a very sympathetic and a very understanding
review. Later on when she was discouraged by what others said she
would refer to it as having given her at that time great comfort. She
says in Composition and Explanation, when you write a thing it is per-
fectly clear and then you begin to be doubtful about it, but then you read
it again and you lose yourself in it again as when you wrote it.
94 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
The other thing in connection with this her first book that gave her
pleasure was a very enthusiastic note from H. G. Wells. She kept this
for years apart, it had meant so much to her. She wrote to him at that
time and they were often to meet but as it happened they never did. And
they are not likely to now.
Gertrude Stein was at that time writing The Making of Americans.
It had changed from being a history of a family to being a history of
everybody the family knew and then it became the history of every kind
and of every individual human being. But in spite of all this there was a
hero and he was to die. The day he died I met Gertrude Stein at Mil-
dred Aldrich's apartment. Mildred was very fond of Gertrude Stein and
took a deep interest in the book's ending. It was over a thousand pages
long and I was typewriting it.
I always say that you cannot tell what a picture really is or what an
object really is until you dust it every day and you cannot tell what a
book is until you type it or proof-read it. It then does something to you
that only reading never can do. A good many years later Jane Heap said
that she had never appreciated the quality of Gertrude Stein's work until
she proof-read it.
When The Making of Americans was finished, Gertrude Stein began
another which also was to be long and which she called A Long Gay
Book but it did not turn out to be long, neither that nor one begun at
the same time Many Many Women because they were both interrupted
by portrait writing. This is how portrait writing began.
Helene used to stay at home with her husband Sunday evening, that
is to say she was always willing to come but we often told her not to
bother. I like cooking, I am an extremely good five-minute cook, and
beside, Gertrude Stein liked from time to time to have me make amer-
ican dishes. One Sunday evening I was very busy preparing one of these
and then I called Gertrude Stein to come in from the atelier for supper.
She came in much excited and would not sit down. Here I want to
show you something, she said. No I said it has to be eaten hot. No, she
said, you have to see this first. Gertrude Stein never likes her food hot
and I do like mine hot, we never agree about this. She admits that one
can wait to cool it but one cannot heat it once it is on a plate so it is
agreed that I have it served as hot as I like. In spite of my protests and
the food cooling I had to read. I can still see the little tiny pages of the
note-book written forward and back. It was the portrait called Ada, the
1907-1914 95
first in Geography and Plays. I began it and I thought she was making
fun of me and I protested, she says I protest now about my autobiog-
raphy. Finally I read it all and was terribly pleased with it. And then
we ate our supper.
This was the beginning of the long series of portraits. She has written
portraits of practically everybody she has known, and written them in
all manners and in all styles.
Ada was followed by portraits of Matisse and Picasso, and Stieglitz
who was much interested in them and in Gertrude Stein printed them
in a special number of Camera Work.
She then began to do short portraits of everybody who came in and out.
She did one of Arthur Frost, the son of A. B. Frost the american illus-
trator. Frost was a Matisse pupil and his pride when he read his portrait
and found that it was three full pages longer than either the portrait of
Matisse or the portrait of Picasso was something to hear.
A. B. Frost complained to Pat Bruce who had led Frost to Matisse that
it was a pity that Arthur could not see his way to becoming a conven-
tional artist and so earning fame and money. You can lead a horse to
water but you cannot make him drink said Pat Bruce. Most horses
drink, Mr. Bruce, said A. B. Frost.
Bruce, Patrick Henry Bruce, was one of the early and most ardent
Matisse pupils and soon he made little Matisses, but he was not happy.
In explaining his unhappiness he told Gertrude Stein, they talk about
the sorrows of great artists, the tragic unhappiness of great artists but
after all they are great artists. A little artist has all the tragic unhappiness
and the sorrows of a great artist and he is not a great artist.
She did portraits of Nadelman, also of the proteges of the sculptress
Mrs. Whitney, Lee and Russell also of Harry Phelan Gibb, her first and
best english friend. She did portraits of Manguin and Roche and Purr-
mann and David Edstrom, the fat Swedish sculptor who married the
head of the Christian Science Church in Paris and destroyed her. And
Brenner, Brenner the sculptor who never finished anything. He had an
admirable technique and a great many obsessions which kept him from
work. Gertrude Stein was very fond of him and still is. She once posed
to him for weeks and he did a fragmentary portrait of her that is very
fine. He and Cody later published some numbers of a little review called
Soil and they were among the very early ones to print something of
Gertrude Stein. The only little magazine that preceded it was one called
96 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
Rogue, printed by Allan Norton and which printed her description of
the Galerie Lafayette. This was of course all much later and happened
through Carl Van Vechten.
She also did portraits of Miss Etta Cone and her sister Doctor Claribel
Cone. She also did portraits of Miss Mars and Miss Squires under the
title of Miss Furr and Miss Skeene. There were portraits of Mildred Al-
drich and her sister. Everybody was given their portrait to read and
they were all pleased and it was all very amusing. All this occupied a
great deal of that winter and then we went to Spain.
In Spain Gertrude Stein began to write the things that led to Tender
Buttons.
*
I liked Spain immensely. We went several times to Spain and I always
liked it more and more. Gertrude Stein says that I am impartial on every
subject except that of Spain and Spaniards.
We went straight to Avila and I immediately lost my heart to Avila,
I must stay in Avila forever I insisted. Gertrude Stein was very upset,
Avila was alright but, she insisted, she needed Paris. I felt that I needed
nothing but Avila. We were both very violent about it. We did however
stay there for ten days and as Saint Theresa was a heroine of Gertrude
Stein's youth we thoroughly enjoyed it. In the opera Four Saints written
a few years ago she describes the landscape that so profoundly moved
me.
We went on to Madrid and there we met Georgiana King of Bryn
Mawr, an old friend of Gertrude Stein from Baltimore days. Georgiana
King wrote some of the most interesting of the early criticisms of Three
Lives. She was then re-editing Street on the cathedrals of Spain and in
connection with this she had wandered all over Spain. She gave us a
great deal of very good advice.
In these days Gertrude Stein wore a brown corduroy suit, jacket and
skirt, a small straw cap, always crocheted for her b,y a woman in Fiesole,
sandals, and she often carried a cane. That summer the head of the cane
was of amber. It is more or less this costume without the cap and the cane
that Picasso has painted in his portrait of her. This costume was ideal for
Spain, they all thought of her as belonging to some religious order and
we were always treated with the most absolute respect. I remember that
once a nun was showing us the treasures in a convent church in Toledo.
We were near the steps of the altar. All of a sudden there was a crash,
Gertrude Stein had dropped her cane. The nun paled, the worshippers
1907-1914 97
startled. Gertrude Stein picked up her cane and turning to the fright-
ened nun said reassuringly, no it is not broken.
I used in those days of Spanish travelling to wear what I was wont to
call my Spanish disguise. I always wore a black silk coat, black gloves
and a black hat, the only pleasure I allowed myself were lovely artificial
flowers on my hat. These always enormously interested the peasant
women and they used to very courteously ask my permission to touch
them, to realise for themselves that they were artificial.
We went to Cuenca that summer, Harry Gibb the english painter had
told us about it. Harry Gibb is a strange case of a man who foresaw
everything. He had been a successful animal painter in his youth in
England, he came from the north of England, he had married and gone
to Germany, there he had become dissatisfied with what he had been
doing and heard about the new school of painting in Paris. He came to
Paris and was immediately influenced by Matisse. He then became inter-
ested in Picasso and he did some very remarkable painting under their
combined influences. Then all this together threw him into something
else something that fairly completely achieved what the surrealists after
the war tried to do. The only thing he lacked is what the french call
saveur, what may be called the graciousness of a picture. Because of this
lack it was impossible for him to find a french audience. Naturally in
those days there was no english audience. Harry Gibb fell on bad days.
He was always falling upon bad days. He and his wife Bridget one of
the pleasantest of the wives of a genius I have sat with were full of cour-
age and they faced everything admirably, but there were always very
difficult days. And then things were a little better. He found a couple
of patrons who believed in him and it was at this time, 1912-1913, that
he went to Dublin and had rather an epoch-making show of his pictures
there. It was at that time that he took with him several copies of the por-
trait of Mabel Dodge at the Villa Curonia, Mabel Dodge had had it
printed in Florence, and it was then that the Dublin writers in the cafes
heard Gertrude Stein read aloud. Doctor Gogarty, Harry Gibb's host
and admirer, loved to read it aloud himself and have others read it
aloud.
After that there was the war and eclipse for poor Harry, and since
then a long sad struggle. He has had his ups and downs, more downs
than up, but only recently there was a new turn of the wheel. Gertrude
Stein who loved them both dearly always was convinced that the two
98 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
painters of her generation who would be discovered after they were
dead, they being predestined to a life of tragedy, were Juan Gris and
Harry Gibb. Juan Gris dead these five years is beginning to come into
his own. Harry Gibb still alive is still unknown. Gertrude Stein and
Harry Gibb have always been very loyal and very loving friends. One of
the very good early portraits she did she did of him, it was printed in the
Oxford Review and then in Geography and Plays.
So Harry Gibb told us about Cuenca and we went on a little railroad
that turned around curves and ended in the middle of nowhere and
there was Cuenca.
We delighted in Cuenca and the population of Cuenca delighted in us.
It delighted in us so much that it was getting uncomfortable. Then one
day when we were out walking, all of a sudden the population, particu-
larly the children, kept their distance. Soon a uniformed man came up
and saluting said that he was a policeman of the town and that the
governor of the province had detailed him to always hover in the dis-
tance as we went about the country to prevent our being annoyed by the
population and that he hoped that this would not inconvenience us. It
did not, he was charming and he took us to lovely places in the country
where we could not very well have gone by ourselves. Such was Spain
in the old days.
We finally came back to Madrid again and there we discovered the
Argentina and bull-fights. The young journalists of Madrid had just dis-
covered her. We happened upon her in a music hall, we went to them
to see Spanish dancing, and after we saw her the first time we went every
afternoon and every evening. We went to the bull-fights. At first they
upset me and Gertrude Stein used to tell me, now look, now don't look,
until finally I was able to look all the time.
We finally came to Granada and stayed there for some time and there
Gertrude Stein worked terrifically. She was always very fond of Granada.
It was there she had her first experience of Spain when still at college
just after the spanish-american war when she and her brother went
through Spain. They had a delightful time and she always tells of sitting
in the dining room talking to a bostonian and his daughter when sud-
denly there was a terrific noise, the hee-haw of a donkey. What is it, said
the young bostonian trembling. Ah, said the father, it is the last sigh of
the Moor.
We enjoyed Granada, we met many amusing people english and span-
1907-1914 99
ish and it was there and at that time that Gertrude Stein's style gradually
changed. She says hitherto she had been interested only in the insides of
people, their character and what went on inside them, it was during
that summer that she first felt a desire to express the rhythm of the vis-
ible world.
It was a long tormenting process, she looked, listened and described.
She always was, she always is, tormented by the problem of the external
and the internal. One of the things that always worries her about paint-
ing is the difficulty that the artist feels and which sends him to painting
still lifes, that after all the human being essentially is not paintable. Once
again and very recently she has thought that a painter has added some-
thing to the solution of this problem. She is interested in Picabia in
whom hitherto she has never been interested because he at least knows
that if you do not solve your painting problem in painting human beings
you do not solve it at all. There is also a follower of Picabia's, who is
facing the problem, but will he solve it. Perhaps not. Well anyway it is
that of which she is always talking and now her own long struggle with
it was to begin.
These were the days in which she wrote Susie Asado and Preciocilla
and Gypsies in Spain. She experimented with everything in trying to
describe. She tried a bit inventing words but she soon gave that up.
The english language was her medium and with the english language
the task was to be achieved, the problem solved. The use of fabricated
words offended her, it was an escape into imitative emotionalism.
No, she stayed with her task, although after the return to Paris she
described objects, she described rooms and objects, which joined with
her first experiments done in Spain, made the volume Tender Buttons.
She always however made her chief study people and therefore the
never ending series of portraits.
We came back to the rue de Fleurus as usual.
One of the people who had impressed me very much when I first came
to the rue de Fleurus was Mildred Aldrich.
Mildred Aldrich was then in her early fifties, a stout vigorous woman
with a George Washington face, white hair and admirably clean fresh
clothes and gloves. A very striking figure and a very satisfying one in
the crowd of mixed nationalities. She was indeed one of whom Picasso
could say and did say, c'est elle qui fera la gloire de PAmerique. She
made one very satisfied with one's country, which had produced her.
TOO THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
Her sister having left for America she lived alone on the top floor of
a building on the corner of the boulevard Raspail and the half street,
rue Boissonade. There she had at the window an enormous cage filled
with canaries. We always thought it was because she loved canaries.
Not at all. A friend had once left her a canary in a cage to take care of
during her absence. Mildred as she did everything else, took excellent
care of the canary in the cage. Some friend seeing this and naturally con-
cluding that Mildred was fond of canaries gave her another canary.
Mildred of course took excellent care of both canaries and so the canaries
increased and the size of the cage grew until in 1914 she moved to Huiry
to the Hilltop on the Marne and gave her canaries away. Her excuse was
that in the country cats would eat the canaries. But her real reason she
once told me was that she really could not bear canaries.
Mildred was an excellent housekeeper. I was very surprised, having
had a very different impression of her, going up to see her one after-
noon, finding her mending her linen and doing it beautifully.
Mildred adored cablegrams, she adored being hard up, or rather she
adored spending money and as her earning capacity although great was
limited, Mildred was chronically hard up. In those days she was making
contracts to put Maeterlinck's Blue Bird on the american stage. The ar-
rangements demanded endless cablegrams, and my early memories of
Mildred were of her coming to our little apartment in the rue Notre-
Dame-des-Champs late in the evening and asking me to lend her the
money for a long cable. A few days later the money was returned with
a lovely azalea worth five times the money. No wonder she was always
hard up. But everybody listened to her. No one in the world could tell
stories like Mildred. I can still see her at the rue de Fleurus sitting in one
of the big armchairs and gradually the audience increasing around her
as she talked.
She was very fond of Gertrude Stein, very interested in her work, en-
thusiastic about Three Lives, deeply impressed but slightly troubled by
The Making of Americans, quite upset by Tender Buttons, but always
loyal and convinced that if Gertrude Stein did it it had something in it
that was worth while.
Her joy and pride when in nineteen twenty-six Gertrude Stein gave
her lecture at Cambridge and Oxford was touching. Gertrude Stein must
come out and read it to her before leaving. Gertrude Stein did, much to
their mutual pleasure.
1907-1914 101
Mildred Aldrich liked Picasso and even liked Matisse, that is per-
sonally, but she was troubled. One day she said to me, Alice, tell me is
it alright, are they really alright, I know Gertrude thinks so and Gertrude
knows, but really is it not all fumisterie, is it not all false.
In spite of these occasional doubtful days Mildred Aldrich liked it all.
She liked coming herself and she liked bringing other people. She
brought a great many. It was she who brought Henry McBride who was
then writing on the New York Sun. It was Henry McBride who used to
keep Gertrude Stein's name before the public all those tormented years.
Laugh if you like, he used to say to her detractors, but laugh with and
not at her, in that way you will enjoy it all much better.
Henry McBride did not believe in worldly success. It ruins you, it
ruins you, he used to say. But Henry, Gertrude Stein used to answer
dolefully, don't you think I will ever have any success, I would like to
have a little, you know. Think of my unpublished manuscripts. But
Henry McBride was firm, the best that I can wish you, he always said,
is to have no success. It is the only good thing. He was firm about that.
He was however enormously pleased when Mildred was successful
and he now says he thinks the time has come when Gertrude Stein could
indulge in a little. success. He does not think that now it would hurt her.
It was about this time that Roger Fry first came to the house. He
brought Clive Bell and Mrs. Clive Bell and later there were many others.
In these days Clive Bell went along with the other two. He was rather
complainful that his wife and Roger Fry took too much interest in capital
works of art. He was quite funny about it. He was very amusing, later
when he became a real art critic he was less so.
Roger Fry was always charming, charming as a guest and charming
as a host; later when we went to London we spent a day with him in the
country.
He was filled with excitement at the sight of the portrait of Gertrude
Stein by Picasso. He wrote an article about it in the Burlington Review
and illustrated it by two photographs side by side, one the photograph of
this portrait and the other a photograph of a portrait by Raphael. He
insisted that these two pictures were equal in value. He brought endless
people to the house. Very soon there were throngs of englishmen,
Augustus John and Lamb, Augustus John amazing looking and not too
sober, Lamb rather strange and attractive.
Jt was about this time that Roger Fry had many young disciples.
102 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
Among them was Wyndham Lewis, Wyndham Lewis, tall and thin,
looked rather like a young frenchman on the rise, perhaps because his
feet were very french, or at least his shoes. He used to come and sit and
measure pictures. I can not say that he actually measured with a meas-
uring-rod but he gave all the effect of being in the act of taking very
careful measurement of the canvas, the lines within the canvas and
everything that might be of use. Gertrude Stein rather liked him. She
particularly liked him one day when he came and told all about his
quarrel with Roger Fry. Roger Fry had come in not many days before
and had already told all about it. They told exactly the same story only
it was different, very different.
This was about the time too that Prichard o£ the Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston and later of the Kensington Museum began coming.
Prichard brought a great many young Oxford men. They were very nice
in the room, and they thought Picasso wonderful. They felt and indeed
in a way it was true that he had a halo. With these Oxford men came
Thomas Whittemore of Tufts College. He was fresh and engaging and
later to Gertrude Stein's great delight he one day said, all blue is precious.
Everybody brought somebody. As I said the character of the Saturday
evenings was gradually changing, that is to say, the kind of people who
came had changed. Somebody brought the Infanta Eulalia and brought
her several times. She was delighted and with the flattering memory
of royalty she always remembered my name even some years after when
we met quite by accident in the place Vendome. When she first came
into the room she was a little frightened. It seemed a strange place but
gradually she liked it very much.
Lady Cunard brought her daughter Nancy, then a little girl, and very
solemnly bade her never forget the visit.
Who else came. There were so many. The bavarian minister brought
quantities of people. Jacques-Emile Blanche brought delightful people,
so did Alphonse Kann. There was Lady Otoline Morrell looking like a
marvellous feminine version of Disraeli and tall and strange shyly hesi-
tating at the door. There was a dutch near royalty who was left by her
escort who had to go and find a cab and she looked during this short
interval badly frightened.
There was a roumanian princess, and her cabman grew impatient.
Helene came in to announce violently that the cabman would not wait.
1907-1914 103
And then after a violent knock, the cabman himself announced that he
would not wait.
It was an endless variety. And everybody came and no one made any
difference. Gertrude Stein sat peacefully in a chair and those who could
did the same, the rest stood. There were the friends who sat around the
stove and talked and there were the endless strangers who came and
went. My memory of it is very vivid.
As I say everybody brought people. William Cook brought a great
many from Chicago, very wealthy stout ladies and equally wealthy tall
good-looking thin ones. That summer having found the Balearic Islands
on the map, we went to the island of Mallorca and on the little boat
going over was Cook. He too had found it on the map. We stayed only
a little while but he settled down for the summer, and then later he went
back and was the solitary first of all the big crowd of afnericans who have
discovered Palma since. We all went back again during the war.
It was during this summer that Picasso gave us a letter to a friend of
his youth one Raventos in Barcelona. But does he talk french, asked
Gertrude Stein, Pablo giggled, better than you do Gertrude, he answered.
Raventos gave us a good time, he and a descendant of de Soto took us
about for two long days, the days were long because so much of them
were night. They had an automobile, even in those early days, and they
took us up into the hills to see early churches. We would rush up a hill
and then happily come down a little slower and every two hours or so
we ate a dinner. When we finally came back to Barcelona about ten
o'clock in the evening they said, now we will have an aperitif and then
we will eat dinner. It was exhausting eating so many dinners but we
enjoyed ourselves.
Later on much later on indeed only a few years ago Picasso introduced
us to another friend of his youth.
Sabartes and he have known each other ever since they were fifteen
years old but as Sabartes had disappeared into South America, Monte-
video, Uruguay, before Gertrude Stein met Picasso, she had never heard
of him. One day a few years ago Picasso sent word that he was bringing
Sabartes to the house. Sabartes, in Uruguay, had read some things of
Gertrude Stein in various magazines and he hod conceived a great ad-
miration for her work. It never occurred to him that Picasso would know
her. Having come back for the first time in all these years to Paris he
104 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
went to see Picasso and he told him about this Gertrude Stein. But she
is my only friend, said Picasso, it is the only home I go to. Take me, said
Sabartes, and so they came.
Gertrude Stein and Spaniards are natural friends and this time too the
friendship grew.
It was about this time that the futurists, the kalian futurists, had their
big show in Paris and it made a great deal of noise. Everybody was ex-
cited and this show being given in a very well known gallery everybody
went. Jacques-Emile Blanche was terribly upset by it. We found him
wandering tremblingly in the garden of the Tuileries and he said, it
looks alright but is it. No it isn't, said Gertude Stein. You do me good,
said Jacques-Emile Blanche.
The futurists all of them led by Severini thronged around Picasso. He
brought them all to the house. Marinetti came by himself later as I re-
member. In any case everybody found the futurists very dull.
Epstein the sculptor came to the rue de Fleurus one evening. When
Gertrude Stein first came to Paris in nineteen hundred and four, Epstein
was a thin rather beautiful rather melancholy ghost who used to slip in
and out among the Rodin statues in the Luxembourg museum. He had
illustrated Hutchins Hapgood's studies of the ghetto and with the funds
he came to Paris and was very poor. Now when I first saw him, he had
come to Paris to place his sphynx statue to Oscar Wilde over Oscar
Wilde's grave. He was a large rather stout man, not unimpressive but not
beautiful. He had an english wife who had a very remarkable pair of
brown eyes, of a shade of brown I had never before seen in eyes. ,
Doctor Claribel Cone of Baltimore came majestically in and out. She
loved to read Gertrude Stein's work out loud and she did read it out loud
extraordinarily well. She liked ease and graciousness and comfort. She
and her sister Etta Cone were traveling. The only room in the hotel was
not comfortable. Etta bade her sister put up with it as it was only for
one night. Etta, answered Doctor Claribel, one night is as important as
any other night in my life and I must be comfortable. When the war
broke out she happened to be in Munich engaged in scientific work. She
could never leave because it was never comfortable to travel. Everybody
delighted in Doctor Claribel. Much later Picasso made a drawing of her.
Emily Chadbourne came, it was she who brought Lady Otoline Mor-
rell and she also brought many bostonians.
1907-1914 105
Mildred Aldrich once brought a very extraordinary person Myra
Edgerly. I remembered very well that when I was quite young and went
to a fancy-dress ball, a Mardi Gras ball in San Francisco, I saw a very
tall and very beautiful and very brilliant woman there. This was Myra
Edgerly young. Genthe, the well known photographer did endless
photographs of her, mostly with a cat. She had come to London as a
miniaturist and she had had one of those phenomenal successes that
americans do have in Europe. She had miniatured everybody, and the
royal family, and she had maintained her earnest gay careless outspoken
San Francisco way through it all. She now came to Paris to study a little.
She met Mildred Aldrich and became very devoted to her. Indeed it was
Myra who in nineteen thirteen, when Mildred's earning capacity was
rapidly dwindling secured an annuity for her and made it possible for
Mildred to retire to the Hilltop on the Marne.
Myra Edgerly was very earnestly anxious that Gertrude Stein's work
should be more widely known. When Mildred told her about all those
unpublished manuscripts Myra said something must be done. And of
course something was done.
She knew John Lane slightly and she said Gertrude Stein and I must
go to London. But first Myra must write letters and then I must write
letters to everybody for Gertrude Stein. She told me the formula I must
employ. I remember it began, Miss Gertrude Stein as you may or may
not know, is, and then you went on and said everything you had to say.
Under Myra's strenuous impulsion we went to London in the winter
of nineteen twelve, thirteen, for a few weeks. We did have an awfully
good time.
Myra took us with her to stay with Colonel and Mrs. Rogers at River-
hill in Surrey. This was in the vicinity of Knole and of Ightham Mote,
beautiful houses and beautiful parks. This was my first experience of
country-house visiting in England since, as a small child, I had only
been in the nursery. I enjoyed every minute of it. The comfort, the open
fires, the tall maids who were like annunciation angels, the beautiful
gardens, the children, the ease of it all. And the quantity of objects and
of beautiful things. What is that, I would ask Mrs. Rogers, ah that I
know nothing about, it was here when I came. It gave me a feeling that
there had been so many lovely brides in that house who had found all
these things there when they came.
106 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
Gertrude, Stein liked country-house visiting less than I did. The con-
tinuous pleasant hesitating flow of conversation, the never ceasing sound
of the human voice speaking in english, bothered her.
On our next visit to London and when because of being caught by the
war we stayed in country houses with our friends a very long time, she
managed to isolate herself for considerable parts of the day and to avoid
at least one of the three or four meals, and so she liked it better.
We did have a good time in England. Gertrude Stein completely for-
got her early dismal memory of London and has liked visiting there
immensely ever since.
We went to Roger Fry's house in the country and were charmingly
entertained by his quaker sister. We went to Lady Otoline Morrell and
met everybody. We went to Clive Bell's. We went about all the time, we
went shopping and ordered things. I still have my bag and jewel box.
We had an extremely good time. And we went very often to see John
Lane. In fact we were supposed to go every Sunday afternoon to his
house for tea and Gertrude Stein had several interviews with him in his
office. How well I knew all the things in all the shops near the Bodley
Head because while Gertrude Stein was inside with John Lane while
nothing happened and then when finally something happened I waited
outside and looked at everything.
The Sunday afternoons at John Lane's were very amusing. As I re-
member during that first stay in London we went there twice.
John Lane was very interested, Mrs. John Lane was a Boston woman
and very kind.
Tea at the John Lane's Sunday afternoons was an experience. John
Lane had copies of Three Lives and The Portrait of Mabel Dodge. One
did not know why he selected the people he did to show it to. He did not
give either book to any one to read. He put it into their hands and took
it away again and inaudibly he announced that Gertrude Stein was here.
Nobody was introduced to anybody. From time to time John Lane
would take Gertrude Stein into various rooms and show her his pictures,
odd pictures of English schools of all periods, some of them very pleasing.
Sometimes he told a story about how he had come to get it. He never
said anything else about a picture. He also showed her a great many
Beardsley drawings and they talked about Paris.
The second Sunday he asked her to come again to the Bodley Head.
1907-1914 107
This was a long interview. He said that Mrs. Lane had read Three Lives
and thought very highly of it and that he had the greatest confidence in
her judgment. He asked Gertrude Stein when she was coming back to
London. She said she probably was not coming back to London. Well,
he said, when you come in July I imagine we will be ready to arrange
something. Perhaps, he added, I may see you in Paris in the early spring.
And so we left London. We were on the whole very pleased with
ourselves. We had had a very good time and it was the first time that
Gertrude Stein had ever had a conversation with a publisher.
Mildred Aldrich often brought a whole group of people to the house
Saturday evening. One evening a number of people came in with her
and among them was Mabel Dodge. I remember my impression of her
very well.
She was a stoutish woman with a very sturdy fringe of heavy hair
over her forehead, heavy long lashes and very pretty eyes and a very old
fashioned coquetry. She had a lovely voice. She reminded me of a heroine
of my youth, the actress Georgia Cayvan. She asked us to come to Flor-
ence to stay with her. We were going to spend the summer as was then
our habit in Spain but we were going to be back in Paris in the fall and
perhaps we then would. When we came back there were several urgent
telegrams from Mabel Dodge asking us to come to the Villa Curonia
and we did.
We had a very amusing time. We liked Edwin Dodge and we liked
Mabel Dodge but we particularly liked Constance Fletcher whom we
met there.
Constance Fletcher came a day or so after we arrived and I went to the
station to meet her. Mabel Dodge had described her to me as a very
large woman who would wear a purple robe and who was deaf. As a
matter of fact she was dressed in green and was not deaf but very short
sighted, and she was delightful.
Her father and mother came from and lived in Newburyport, Mas-
sachusetts. Edwin Dodge's people came from the same town and this
was a strong bond of union. When Constance was twelve years old her
mother fell in love with the english tutor of Constance's younger brother.
Constance knew that her mother was about to leave her home. For a
week Constance laid on her bed and wept and then accompanied her
mother and her future step-father to Italy. Her step-father being an
108 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
englishman Constance became passionately an english woman. The step-
father was a painter who had a local reputation among the english resi-
dents in Italy.
When Constance Fletcher was eighteen years old she wrote a best-
seller called Kismet and was engaged to be married to Lord Lovelace
the descendant of Byron.
She did not marry him and thereafter lived always in Italy. Finally
she became permanently fixed in Venice. This was after the death of
her mother and father. I always liked as a californian her description
of Joaquin Miller in Rome, in her younger days.
Now in her comparative old age she was attractive and impressive. I
am very fond of needlework and I was fascinated by her fashion of em-
broidering wreaths of flowers. There was nothing drawn upon her linen,
she just held it in her hands, from time to time bringing it closely to one
eye, and eventually the wreath took form. She was very fond of ghosts.
There were two of them in the Villa Curonia and Mabel was very fond
of frightening visiting americans with them which she did in her sug-
gestive way very effectively. Once she drove a house party consisting of
Jo and Yvonne Davidson, Florence Bradley, Mary Foote and a number
of others quite mad with fear. And at last to complete the effect she had
the local priest in to exorcise the ghosts. You can imagine the state of
mind of her guests. But Constance Fletcher was fond of ghosts and par-
ticularly attached to the later one, who was a wistful ghost of an english
governess who had killed herself in the house.
One morning I went in to Constance Fletcher's bedroom to ask her
how she was, she had not been very well the night before.
I went in and closed the door. Constance Fletcher very large and very
white was lying in one of the vast renaissance beds with which the villa
was furnished. Near the door was a very large renaissance cupboard. I
had a delightful night, said Constance Fletcher, the gentle ghost visited
me all night, indeed she has just left me. I imagine she is still in the cup-
board, will you open it please. I did. Is she there, asked Constance
Fletcher. I said I saw nothing. Ah yes, said Constance Fletcher.
We had a delightful time and Gertrude Stein at that time wrote The
Portrait of Mabel Dodge. She also wrote the portrait of Constance
Fletcher that was later printed in Geography and Plays. Many years later
indeed after the war in London I met Siegfried Sassoon at a party given
by Edith Sitwell for Gertrude Stein. He spoke of Gertrude Stein's por-
1907-1914 109
trait of Constance Fletcher which he had read in Geography and Plays
and said that he had first become interested in Gertrude Stein's work
because of this portrait. And he added, and did you know her and if
you did can you tell me about her marvellous voice. I said, very much
interested, then you did not know her. No, he said, I never saw her but
she ruined my life. How, I asked excitedly. Because, he answered, she
separated my father from my mother.
Constance Fletcher had written "one very successful play which had
had a long run in London called Green Stockings but her real life had
been in Italy. She was more italian than the Italians. She admired her
step-father and therefore was english but she was really dominated by
the fine italian hand of Machiavelli. She could and did intrigue in the
italian way better than even the italians and she was a disturbing influ-
ence for many years in Venice not only among the english but also
among the italians.
Andre Gide turned up while we were at the Villa Curonia. It was
rather a dull evening. It was then also that we first met Muriel Draper
and Paul Draper. Gertrude Stein always liked Paul very much. She de-
lighted in his american enthusiasm, and explanation of all things musical
and human. He had had a great deal of adventure in the West and that
was another bond between them. When Paul Draper left to return to
London Mabel Dodge received a telegram saying, pearls missing sus-
pect the second man. She came to Gertrude Stein in great agitation ask-
ing what she should do about it. Don't wake me, said Gertrude Stein,
do nothing. And then sitting up, but that is a nice thing to say, suspect
the second man, that is charming, but who and what is the second man.
Mabel explained that the last time they had a robbery in the villa the
police said that they could do nothing because nobody suspected any
particular person and this time Paul to avoid that complication suspected
the second man servant. While this explanation was being given another
telegram came, pearls found. The second man had put the pearls in the
collar box.
Haweis and his wife, later Mina Loy were also in Florence. Their
home had been dismantled as they had had workmen in it but they put
it all in order to give us a delightful lunch. Both Haweis and Mina were
among the very earliest to be interested in the work of Gertrude Stein.
Haweis had been fascinated with what he had read in manuscript of
The Making of Americans. He did however plead for commas. Ger-
110 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
trude Stein said commas were unnecessary, the sense should be intrinsic
and not have to be explained by commas and otherwise commas were
only a sign that one should pause and take breath but one should know
of oneself when one wanted to pause and take breath. However, as she
liked Haweis very much and he had given her a delightful painting for
a fan, she gave him two commas. It must however be added that on re-
reading the manuscript she took the commas out.
Mina Loy equally interested was able to understand without the
commas. She has always been able to understand.
Gertrude Stein having written The Portrait of Mabel Dodge, Mabel
Dodge immediately wanted it printed. She had three hundred copies
struck off and bound in Florentine paper. Constance Fletcher corrected
the proofs and we were all awfully pleased. Mabel Dodge immediately
conceived the idea that Gertrude Stein should be invited from one coun-
try house to another and do portraits and then end up doing portraits of
american millionaires which would be a very exciting and lucrative
career. Gertrude Stein laughed. A little later we went back to Paris.
It was during this winter that Gertrude Stein began to write plays.
They began with the one entitled, It Happened a Play. This was writ-
ten about a dinner party given by Harry and Bridget Gibb. She then
wrote Ladies' Voices. Her interest in writing plays continues. She says
a landscape is such a natural arrangement for a battle-field or a play that
one must write plays.
Florence Bradley, a friend of Mabel Dodge, was spending a winter in
Paris. She had had some stage experience and had been interested in
planning a little theatre. She was vitally interested in putting these plays
on the stage. Demuth was in Paris too at this time. He was then more
interested in writing than in painting and particularly interested in these
plays. He and Florence Bradley were always talking them over together.
Gertrude Stein has never seen Demuth since. When she first heard
that he was painting she was much interested. They never wrote to each
other but they often sent messages by mutual friends. Demuth always
sent word that some day he would do a little picture that would thor-
oughly please him and then he would send it to her. And sure enough
after all these years, two years ago some one left at the rue de Fleurus
during our absence a little picture with a message that this was the pic-
ture that Demuth was ready to give to Gertrude Stein. It is a remark-
able little landscape in which the roofs and windows are so subtle that
,1907-1914 111
they are as mysterious and as alive as the roofs and windows of Haw-
thorne or Henry James.
It was not long after this that Mabel Dodge went to America and it
was the winter of the armoury show which was the first time the general
public had a chance to see any of these pictures. It was there that Marcel
Duchamp's Nude Descending the Staircase was shown.
It was about this time that Picabia and Gertrude Stein met. I remem-
ber going to dinner at the Picabias' and a pleasant dinner it was, Gabrielle
Picabia full of life and gaiety, Picabia dark and lively, and Marcel
Duchamp looking like a young norman crusader.
I was always perfectly able to understand the enthusiasm that Marcel
Duchamp aroused in New York when he went there in the early years
of the war. His brother had just died from the effect of his wounds, his
other brother was still at the front and he himself was inapt for military
service. He was very depressed and he went to America. Everybody
loved him. So much so that it was a joke in Paris that when any american
arrived in Paris the first thing he said was, and how is Marcel. Once
Gertrude Stein went to see Braque, just after the war, and going into
the studio in which there happened just then to be three young ameri-
cans, she said to Braque, and how is Marcelle. The three young americans
came up to her breathlessly and said, have you seen Marcel. She laughed,
and having become accustomed to the inevitableness of the american be-
lief that there was only one Marcel, she explained that Braque's wife was
named Marcelle and it was Marcelle Braque about whom she was en-
quiring.
In those days Picabia and Gertrude Stein did not get to be very good
friends. He annoyed her with his incessantness and what she called the
vulgarity of his delayed adolescence. But oddly enough in this last year
they have gotten to be very fond of each other. She is very much inter-
ested in his drawing and in his painting. It began with his show just a
year ago. She is now convinced that although he has in a sense not a
painter's gift he has an idea that has been and will be of immense value
to all time. She calls him the Leonardo da Vinci of the movement. And
i{ is true, he understands and invents everything.
As soon as the winter of the armoury show was over Mabel Dodge
came back to Europe and she brought with her what Jacques-Emile
Blanche called her collection des jeunes gens assortis, a mixed assort-
ment of young men. In the lot were Carl Van Vechten, Robert Jones
112 THE. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
and John Reed. Carl Van Vechten did not come to the rue de Fleurus
with her. He came later in the spring by himself. The other two came
with her. I remember the evening they all came. Picasso was there too.
He looked at John Reed critically and said, le genre de Braque mais
beaucoup moins rigolo, Braque's kind but much less diverting. I remem-
ber also that Reed told me about his trip through Spain. He told me he
had seen many strange sights there, that he had seen witches chased
through the street of Salamanca. As I had been spending months in
Spain and he only weeks I neither liked his stories nor believed them.
Robert Jones was very impressed by Gertrude Stein's looks. He said
he would like to array her in cloth of gold and he wanted to design it
then and there. It did not interest her.
Among the people that we had met at John Lane's in London was
Gordon Caine and her husband. Gordon Caine had been a Wellesley
girl who played the harp with which she always travelled, and who al-
ways re-arranged the furniture in the hotel room completely, even if she
was only to stay one night. She was tall, rosy-haired and very good-look-
ing. Her husband was a well known humorous english writer and one
of John Lane's authors. They, had entertained us very pleasantly in Lon-
don and we asked them to dine with us their first night in Paris. I don't
know quite what happened but Helene cooked a very bad dinner. Only
twice in all her long service did Helene fail us. This time and when about
two weeks later Carl Van Vechten turned up. That time too she did
strange things, her dinner consisting of a series of hors d'ceuvres. How-
ever that is later.
During dinner Mrs. Caine said that she had taken the liberty of ask-
ing her very dear friend and college mate Mrs. Van Vechten to come
in after dinner because she was very anxious that she should meet Ger-
trude Stein as she was very depressed and unhappy and Gertrude Stein
could undoubtedly have an influence for the good in her life. Gertrude
Stein said that she had a vague association with the name of Van Vech-
ten but could not remember what it was. She has a bad memory for
names. Mrs. Van Vechten came. She too was a very tall woman, it would
appear that a great many tall ones go to Wellesley, and she too was
good-looking. Mrs. Van Vechten told the story of the tragedy of her
married life but Gertrude Stein was not particularly interested.
It was about a week later that .Florence Bradley asked us to go with
her to see the second performance of the Sacre du Printemps. The rus-
1907-1914 113
sian ballet had just given the first performance of it and it had made
a terrible uproar. All Paris was excited about it. Florence Bradley had
gotten three tickets in a box, the box held four, and asked us to go with
her. In the meantime there had been a letter from Mabel Dodge intro-
ducing Carl Van Vechten, a young New York journalist. Gertrude Stein
invited him to dine the following Saturday evening.
We went early to the russian ballet, these were the early great days of
the russian ballet with Nijinsky as the great dancer. And a great dancer
he was. Dancing excites me tremendously and it is a thing I know a
great deal about. I have seen three very great dancers. My geniuses seem
to run in threes, but that is not my fault, it happens to be a fact. The
three really great dancers I have seen are the Argentina, Isadora Duncan
and Nijinsky. Like the three geniuses I have known they are each one
of a different nationality.
Nijinsky did not dance in the Sacre du Printemps but he created the
dance of those who did dance. •
We arrived in the box and sat down in the three front chairs leaving
one chair behind. Just in front of us in the seats below was Guillaume
Apollinaire. He was dressed in evening clothes and he was industriously
kissing various important looking ladies' hands. He was the first one of
his crowd to come out into the great world wearing evening clothes and
kissing hands. We were very amused and very pleased to see him do it.
It was the first time we had seen him doing it. After the war they all did
these things but he was the only one to commence before the war.
Just before the performance began the fourth chair in our box was oc-
cupied. We looked around and there was a tall well-built young man,
he might have been a dutchman, a Scandinavian or an american and he
wore a soft evening shirt with the tiniest pleats all over the front of it.
It was impressive, we had never even heard that they were wearing
evening shirts like that. That evening when we got home Gertrude Stein
did a portrait of the unknown called a Portrait of One.
The performance began. No sooner had it commenced when the ex-
citement began. The scene now so well known with its brilliantly col-
oured background now not at all extraordinary, outraged the Paris
audience. No sooner did the music begin and the dancing than they
began to hiss. The defenders began to applaud. We could hear nothing,
as a matter of fact I never did hear any of the music of the Sacre du
Printemps because it was the only time I ever saw it and one literally
114 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
could not, throughout the whole performance, hear the sound of music.
The dancing was very fine and that we could see although our atten-
tion was constantly distracted by a man in the box next to us flourish-
ing his cane, and finally in a violent altercation with an enthusiast in
the box next to him, his cane came down and smashed the opera hat the
other had just put on in defiance. It was all incredibly fierce.
The next Saturday evening Carl Van Vechten was to come to dinner.
He came and he was the young man of the soft much-pleated evening
shirt and it was the same shirt. Also of course he was the hero or villain
of Mrs. Van Vechten's tragic tale.
As I said Helene did for the second time in her life make an extraor-
dinarily bad dinner. For some reason best known to herself she gave us
course after course of hors d'oeuvres finishing up with a sweet omelet.
Gertrude Stein began to tease Carl Van Vechten by dropping a word
here and there of intimate knowledge of his past life. He was naturally
bewildered. It was a curious evening.
Gertrude Stein and he became dear friends.
He interested Allan and Louise Norton in her work and induced them
to print in the little magazine they founded, The Rogue, the first thing
of Gertrude Stein's ever printed in a little magazine, The Galerie
Lafayette. In another number of this now rare little magazine, he printed
a little essay on the work of Gertrude Stein. It was he who in one of his
early books printed as a motto the device on Gertrude Stein's note-paper,
a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose. Just recently she has had made for him
by our local potter at the foot of the hill at Belley some plates in the yel-
low clay of the country and around the border is a rose is a rose is aVose
is a rose and in the centre is to Carl.
In season and out he kept her name and her work before the public.
When he was beginning to be well known and they asked him what he
thought the most important book of the year he replied Three Lives by
Gertrude Stein. His loyalty and his effort never weakened. He tried to
make Knopf publish The Making of Americans and he almost suc-
ceeded but of course they weakened.
Speaking of the device of rose is a rose is a rose is a rose, it was I who
found it in one of Gertrude Stein's manuscripts and insisted upon put-
ting it as a device on the letter paper, on the table linen and anywhere
that she would permit that I would put it. I am very pleased with myself
for having done so.
1907-1914 115
Carl Van Vcchten has had a delightful habit all these years of giving
letters of introduction to people who he thought would amuse Gertrude
Stein. This he has done with so much discrimination that she has liked
them all.
The first and perhaps the one she has liked the best was Avery Hop-
wood. The friendship lasted until Avery's death a few years ago. When
Avery came to Paris he always asked Gertrude Stein and myself to dine
with him. This custom began in the early days of the acquaintance.
Gertrude Stein is not a very enthusiastic diner-out but she never refused
Avery. He always had the table charmingly decorated with flowers and
the menu most carefully chosen. He sent us endless petits bleus, little
telegrams, arranging this affair and we alwaysjiad a good time. In these
early days, holding his head a little on one side and with his tow-coloured
hair, he looked like a lamb. Sometimes in the latter days as Gertrude
Stein told him the lamb turned into a wolf. Gertrude Stein would I
know at this moment say, dear Avery. They were very fond of each
other. Not long before his death he came into the room one day and said
I wish I could give you something else beside just dinner, he said, per-
haps I could give you a picture. Gertrude Stein laughed, it is alright, she
said to him, Avery, if you will always come here and take just tea. And
then in the future beside the petit bleu in which he proposed our dining
with him he would send another petit bleu saying that he would come
one afternoon to take just tea. Once he came and brought with him Ger-
trude /ftherton. He said so sweetly, I want the two Gertrudes whom I
love so much to know each other. It was a perfectly delightful after-
noon. Every one was pleased and charmed and as for me a californian,
Gertrude Atherton had been my youthful idol and so I was very content.
The last time we saw Avery was on his last visit to Paris. He sent his
usual message asking us to dinner and when he came to call for us he
told Gertrude Stein that he had asked some of his friends to come be-
cause he was going to ask her to do something for him. You see, he said,
you have never gone to Montmartre with me and I have a great fancy
that you should to-night. I know it was your Montmartre long before it
was mine but would you. She laughed and said, of course Avery.
We did after dinner go up to Montmartre with him. We went to a
great many queer places and he was so proud and pleased. We were
always going in a cab from one place to another and Avery Hopwood
and Gertrude Stein went together and they had long talks and Avery
116 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
must have had some premonition that it was the last time because he
had never talked so openly and so intimately. Finally we left and he
came out and put us into a cab and he told Gertrude Stein it had been
one of the best evenings of his life. He left the next day for the south
and we for the country. A little while after Gertrude Stein had a postal
from him telling her how happy he had been to see her again and the
same morning there was the news of his death in the Herald.
It was about nineteen twelve that Alvin Langdon Coburn turned up
in Paris. He was a queer american who brought with him a queer
english woman, his adopted mother. Alvin Langdon Coburn had just
finished a series of photographs that he had done for Henry James. He
had published a book of photographs of prominent men and he wished
now to do a companion volume of prominent women. I imagine it was
Roger Fry who had told him about Gertrude Stein. At any rate he was
the first photographer to come and photograph her as a celebrity and
she was nicely gratified. He did make some very good photographs of
her and gave them to her and then he disappeared and though Gertrude
Stein has often asked about him nobody seems ever to have heard of him
since.
This brings us pretty well to the spring of nineteen fourteen. During
this winter among the people who used to come to the house was the
younger step-daughter of Bernard Berenson. She brought with her a
young friend, Hope Mirlees and Hope said that when we went to
England in the summer we must go down to Cambridge and sfay with
her people. We promised that we would.
During the winter Gertrude Stein's brother decided that he would go
to Florence to live. They divided the pictures that they had bought to-
gether, between them. Gertrude Stein kept the Cezannes and Picassos
and her brother the Matisses and Renoirs, with the exception of the
original Femme au Chapeau.
We planned that we would have a little passage-way made between
the studio and the little house and as that entailed cutting a door and
plastering we decided that we would paint the atelier and repaper the
house and put in electricity. We proceeded to have all this done. It was
the end of June before this was accomplished and the house had not yet
been put in order when Gertrude Stein received a letter from John Lane
saying he would be in Paris the following day and would come to see her.
1907-1914 117
We worked very hard, that is I did and the concierge and Helene
and the room was ready to receive him.
He brought with him the first copy of Blast by Wyndham Lewis and
he gave it to Gertrude Stein and wanted to know what she thought of
it and would she write for it. She said she did not know.
John Lane then asked her if she would come to London in July as he
had almost made up his mind to republish the Three Lives and would
she bring another manuscript with her. She said she would and she
suggested a collection of all the portraits she had done up to that time.
The Making of Americans was not considered because it was too long.
And so that having been arranged John Lane left.
In those days Picasso having lived rather sadly in the rue Schoelcher
was to move a little further out to Montrouge. It was not an unhappy time
for him but after the Montmartre days one never heard his high whinny-
ing Spanish giggle. His friends, a great many of them, had followed him
to Montparnasse but it was not the same. The intimacy with Braque was
waning and of his old friends the only ones he saw frequently were
Guillaume Apollinaire and Gertrude Stein. It was in that year that he
began to use ripolin paints instead of the usual colours used by painters.
Just the other day he was talking a long time about the ripolin paints.
They are, said he gravely, la same des couleurs, that is they are the basis
of good health for paints. In those days he painted pictures and every-
thing with ripolin paints as he still does, and as so many of his follow-
ers young and old do.
He was at this time too making constructions in paper, in tin and in all
sorts of things, the sort of thing that made it possible for him afterwards
to do the famous stage setting for Parade.
It was in these days that Mildred Aldrich was preparing to retire to
the Hilltop on the Marne. She too was not unhappy but rather sad. She
wanted us often in those spring evenings to take a cab and have what
she called our last ride together. She more often than ever dropped her
house key all the way down the centre of the stairway while she called
good-night to us from the top story of the apartment house on the rue
Boissonade.
We often went out to the country with her to see her house. Finally
she moved in. We went out and spent the day with her. Mildred was not
unhappy but she was very sad. My curtains are all up, my books in order,
118 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
everything is clean and what shall I do now, said Mildred. I told her that
when I was a little girl, my mother said that I always used to say, what
shall I do now, which was only varied by now what shall I do. Mildred
said that the worst of it was that we were going to London and that she
would not see us all summer. We assured her that we would only stay
away a month, in fact we had return tickets, and so we had to, and as soon
as we got home we would go out to see her. Anyway she was happy that
at last Gertrude Stein was going to have a publisher who would publish
her books. But look out for John Lane, he is a fox, she said, as we kissed
her and left.
Helene was leaving 27 rue de Fleurus because, her husband having
recently been promoted to be foreman in his work shop he insisted that
she must not work out any longer but must stay at home.
In short in this spring and early summer of nineteen fourteen the old
life was over.
6 The War
Americans living in Europe before the war never really believed that
there was going to be war. Gertrude Stein always tells about the little
janitor's boy who, playing in the court, would regularly every couple of
years assure her that papa was going to the war. Once some cousins of
hers were living in Paris, they had a country girl as a servant. It was the
time of the russian-japanese war and they were all talking about the
latest news. Terrified she dropped the platter and cried, and are the ger-
mans at the gates.
William Cook's father was an lowan who at seventy years of age was
making his first trip in Europe in the summer of nineteen fourteen.
When the war was upon them he refused to believe it and explained
that he could understand a family fighting among themselves, in short
a civil war, but not a serious war with one's neighbours.
Gertrude Stein in 1913 and 1914 had been very interested reading the
newspapers. She rarely read french newspapers, she never read anything
in french, and she always read the Herald. That winter she added the
Daily Mail. She liked to read about the suffragettes and she liked to read
about Lord Roberts' campaign for compulsory military service in
England. Lord Roberts had been a favourite hero of hers early in her
life. His Forty-One Years In India was a book she often read and she
had seen Lord Roberts when she and her brother, then taking a college
vacation, had seen Edward the Seventh's coronation procession. She
read the Daily Mail, although, as she said, she was not interested in
Ireland.
We went to England July fifth and went according to programme
to see John Lane at his house Sunday afternoon.
There were a number of people there and they were talking of many
things but some of them were talking about war. One of them, some
one told me he was an editorial writer on one of the big London dailies,
was bemoaning the fact that he would not be able to eat figs in August
119
120 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
in Provence as was his habit. . Why not, asked some one. Because of the
war, he answered. Some one else, Walpole or his brother I think it was,
said that there was no hope of beating Germany as she had such an
excellent system, all her railroad trucks were numbered in connection
with locomotives and switches. But, said the eater of figs, that is all very
well as long as the trucks remain in Germany on their own lines and
switches, but in an aggressive war they will leave the frontiers of Ger-
many and then, well I promise you then there will be a great deal of num-
bered confusion.
This is all I remember definitely of that Sunday afternoon in July.
As we were leaving, John Lane said to Gertrude Stein that he was
going out of town for a week and he made a rendezvous with her in his
office for the end of July, to sign the contract for Three Lives. I think, he
said, in the present state of affairs I would rather begin with that than
with something more entirely new. I have confidence in that book. Mrs.
Lane is very enthusiastic and so are the readers.
Having now ten days on our hands we decided to accept the invitation
of Mrs. Mirlees, Hope's mother, and spend a few days in Cambridge.
We went there and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
It was a most comfortable 'house to visit. Gertrude Stein liked it, she
could stay in her room or in the garden as much as she liked without
hearing too much conversation. The food was excellent, scotch food,
delicious and fresh, and it was very amusing meeting all the University
of Cambridge dignitaries. We were taken into all the gardens and in-
vited into many of the homes. It was lovely weather, quantities of roses,
morris-dancing by all the students and girls and generally delightful.
We were invited to lunch at Newnham, Miss Jane Harrison, who had
been Hope Mirlees' pet enthusiasm, was much interested in meeting
Gertrude Stein. We sat up on the dais with the faculty and it was very
awe inspiring. The conversation was not however particularly amusing.
Miss Harrison and Gertrude Stein did not particularly interest each
other.
We had been hearing a good deal about Doctor and Mrs. Whitehead.
They no longer lived in Cambridge. The year before Doctor Whitehead
had left Cambridge to go to London University. They were to be in
Cambridge shortly and they were to dine at the Mirlees'. They did and
I met my third genius.
It was a pleasant dinner. I sat next to Housman, the Cambridge poet,
THE WAR 121
and we talked about fishes and David Starr Jordan but all the time I
was more interested in watching Doctor Whitehead. Later we went into
the garden and he came and sat next to me and we talked about the sky
in Cambridge.
Gertrude Stein and Doctor Whitehead and Mrs. Whitehead all be-
came interested in each other. Mrs. Whitehead asked us to dine at her
house in London and then to spend a week end, the last week end in July
with them in their country home in Lockridge, near Salisbury Plain. We
accepted with pleasure.
We went back to London and had a lovely time. We were ordering
some comfortable chairs and a comfortable couch covered with chintz
to replace some of the italian furniture that Gertrude Stein's brother had
taken with him. This took a great deal of time. We had to measure our-
selves into the chairs and into the couch and to choose chintz that would
go with the pictures, all of which we successfully achieved. These chairs
and this couch, and they are comfortable, in spite of war came to the
door one day in January, nineteen fifteen at the rue de Fleurus and were
greeted by us with the greatest delight. One needed such comforting
and such comfort in those days. We dined with the Whiteheads and
liked them more than ever and they liked us more than ever and were
kind enough to say so.
Gertrude Stein kept her appointment with John Lane at the Bodley
Head. They had a very long conversation, this time so long that I quite
exhausted all the shop windows of that region for quite a distance, but
finally Gertrude Stein came out with a contract. It was a gratifying
climax.
Then we took the train to Lockridge to spend the week end with the
Whiteheads. We had a week-end trunk, we were very proud of our
week-end trunk, we had used it on our first visit and now we were
actively using it again. As one of my friends said to me later, they asked
you to spend the week end and you stayed six weeks. We did.
There was quite a house party when we arrived, some Cambridge
people, some young men, the younger son of the Whiteheads, Eric, then
fifteen years old but very tall and flower-like and the daughter Jessie
just back from Newnham. There could not have been much serious
thought of war because they were all talking of Jessie Whitehead's com-
ing trip to Finland. Jessie always made friends with foreigners from
strange places, she had a passion for geography and a passion for the
122 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
glory of the British Empire. She had a friend, a firm, who had asked her
to spend the summer with her people in Finland and had promised
Jessie a possible uprising against Russia. Mrs. Whitehead was hesitating
but had practically consented. There was an older son North who was
away at the time.
Then suddenly, as I remember, there were the conferences to prevent
the war, Lord Grey and the russian minister of foreign affairs. And then
before anything further could happen the ultimatum to France. Ger-
trude Stein and I were completely miserable as was Evelyn Whitehead,
who had french blood and who had been raised in France and had strong
french sympathies. Then came the days of the invasion of Belgium and
I can still hear Doctor Whitehead's gentle voice reading the papers out
loud and then all of them talking about the destruction of Louvain and
how they must help the brave little belgians. Gertrude Stein desperately
unhappy said to me, where is Louvain. Don't you know, I said. No, she
said, nor do I care, but where is it.
Our week end was over and we told Mrs. Whitehead that we must
leave. But you cannot get back to Paris now, she said. No, we answered,
but we can stay in London. Oh no, she said, you must stay with us until
you can get back to Paris. She was very sweet and we were very un-
happy and we liked them and they liked us and we agreed to stay. And
then to our infinite relief England came into the war.
We had to go to London to get our trunks, to cable to people in
America and to draw money, and Mrs. Whitehead wished to go in to
see if she and her daughter could do anything to help the belgians. I re-
member that trip so well. There seemed so many people about every-
where, although the train was not overcrowded, but all the stations even
little country ones, were filled with people, not people at all troubled but
just a great many people. At the junction where we were to change
trains we met Lady Astley, a friend of Myra Edgerly's whom we had
met in Paris. Oh how do you do, she said in a cheerful loud voice, I am
going to London to say goodbye to my son. Is he going away, we said
politely. Oh yes, she said, he is in the guards you know, and is leaving to-
night for France.
In London everything was difficult. Gertrude Stein's letter of credit
was on a french bank but mine luckily small was on a California one. I
say luckily small because the banks would not give large sums but my
THE WAR 123
letter of credit was so small and so almost used up that they without hesi-
tation gave me all that there was left of it.
Gertrude Stein cabled to her cousin in Baltimore to send her money,
we gathered in our trunks, we met Evelyn Whitehead at the train and
we went back with her to Lockridge. It was a relief to get back. We ap-
preciated her kindness because to have been at a hotel in London at that
moment would have been too dreadful.
Then one day followed another and it is hard to remember just what
happened. North Whitehead was away and Mrs. Whitehead was ter-
ribly worried lest he should rashly enlist. She must see him. So they
telegraphed to him to come at once. He came. She had been quite right.
He had immediately gone to the nearest recruiting station to enlist and
luckily there had been so many in front of him that the office closed be-
fore he was admitted. She immediately went to London to see Kitchener.
Doctor Whitehead's brother was a bishop in India and he had in his
younger days known Kitchener very intimately. Mrs. Whitehead had
this introduction and North was given a commission. She came home
much relieved. North was to join in three days but in the meantime
he must learn to drive a motor car. The three days passed very quickly
and North was gone. He left immediately for France and without much
equipment. And then came the time of waiting.
Evelyn Whitehead was very busy planning war work and helping
every one and I as far as possible helped her. Gertrude Stein and Doctor
Whitehead walked endlessly around the country. They talked of phi-
losophy and history, it was during these days that Gertrude Stein realised
how completely it was Doctor Whitehead and not Russell who had had
the ideas for their great book. Doctor Whitehead, the gentlest and most
simply generous of human beings never claimed anything for himself
and enormously admired anyone who was brilliant, and Russell un-
doubtedly was brilliant.
Gertrude Stein used to come back and tell me about these walks and
the country still the same as in the days of Chaucer, with the green paths
of the early britons that could still be seen in long stretches, and the triple
rainbows of that strange summer. They used, Doctor Whitehead and
Gertrude Stein, to have long conversations with game-keepers and mole-
catchers. The mole-catcher had said, but sir, England has never been in
a war but that she has been victorious. Doctor Whitehead turned to Ger-
124 THE AUT6BIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
trude Stein with a gentle smile. I think we may say so, he said. The
game-keeper, when Doctor Whitehead seemed discouraged said to him,
but Doctor Whitehead, England is the predominant nation, is she not.
I hope she is, yes I hope she is, replied Doctor Whitehead gently.
The germans were getting nearer and nearer Paris. One day Doctor
Whitehead said to Gertrude Stein, they were just going through a rough
little wood and he was helping her, have you any copies of your writings
or are they all in Paris. They are all in Paris, she said. I did not like to
ask, said Doctor Whitehead, but I have been worrying.
The germans were getting nearer and nearer Paris and the last day
Gertrude Stein could not leave her room, she sat and mourned. She loved
Paris, she thought neither of manuscripts nor of, pictures, she thought
only of Paris and she was desolate. I came up to her room, I called out,
it is alright Paris is saved, the germans are in retreat. She turned away
and said, don't tell me these things. But it's true, I said, it is true. And
then we wept together.
The first description that any one we knew received in England of
the battle of the Marne came in a letter to Gertrude Stein from Mildred
Aldrich. It was practically the first letter of her book the Hilltop on the
Marne. We were delighted to receive it, to know that Mildred was safe,
and to know all about it. It was passed around and everybody in the
neighbourhood read it.
Later when we returned to Paris we had two other descriptions of the
battle of the Marne. I had an old school friend from California, Nellie
Jacot who lived in Boulogne-sur-Seine and I was very worried about her.
I telegraphed to her and she telegraphed back characteristically, Nulle-
ment en danger ne t'inquiete pas, there is no danger don't worry. It was
Nellie who used to call Picasso in the early days a good-looking boot-
black and used to say of Fernande, she is alright but I don't see why
you bother about her. It was also Nellie who made Matisse blush by
cross-questioning him about the different ways he saw Madame Matisse,
how she looked to him as a wife and how she looked to him as a picture,
and how he could change from one to the other. It was also Nellie who
told the story which Gertrude Stein loved to quote, of a young man who
once said to her, I love you Nellie, Nellie is your name, isn't it. It was
also Nellie who when we came back from England and we said that
everybody had been so kind, said, oh yes, I know that kind.
Nellie described the battle of the Marne to us. You know, she said, I
THE WAR 125
always come to town once a week to shop and I always bring my maid.
We come in in the street car because it is difficult to get a taxi in Boulogne
and we go back in a taxi. Well we came in as usual and didn't notice
anything and when we had finished our shopping and had had our tea
we stood on a corner to get a taxi. We stopped several and when they
heard where we wanted to go they drove on. I know that sometimes taxi
drivers don't like to go out to Boulogne so I said to Marie tell them we
will give them a big tip if they will go. So she stopped another taxi with
an old driver and I said to him, I will give you a very big tip to take us
out to Boulogne. Ah, said he laying his finger on his nose, to my great
regret madame it is impossible, no taxi can leave the city limits to-day.
Why, I asked. He winked in answer and drove off. We had to go back
to Boulogne in a street car. Of course we understood later, when we
heard about Gallieni and the taxis, said Nellie and added, and that was
the battle of the Marne.
Another description of the battle of the Marne when we first came
back to Paris was from Alfy Maurer. I was sitting, said Alfy at a cafe
and Paris was pale, if you know what I mean, said Alfy, it was like a
pale absinthe. Well I was sitting there and then I noticed lots of horses
pulling lots of big trucks going slowly by and there were some soldiers
with them and on the boxes was written Banque de France. That was
the gold going away just like that, said Alfy, before the battle of the
Marne.
In those dark days of waiting in England of course a great many things
happened. There were a great many people coming and going in the
Whiteheads' home and there was of course plenty of discussion. First
there was Lytton Strachey. He lived in a little house not far from Lock-
ridge.
He came one evening to see Mrs. Whitehead. He was a thin sallow
man with a silky beard and a faint high voice. We had met him the year
before when we had been invited to meet George Moore at the house
of Miss Ethel Sands. Gertrude Stein and George Moore, who looked
very like a prosperous Mellins Food baby, had not been interested in
each other. Lytton Strachey and I talked together about Picasso and the
russian ballet.
He came in this evening and he and Mrs. Whitehead discussed the
possibility of rescuing Lytton Strachey 's sister who was lost in Germany.
She suggested that he apply to a certain person who could help him. But,
126 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
said Lytton Strachey faintly, I have never met him. Yes, said Mrs. White-
head, but you might write to him and ask to see him. Not, replied Lytton
Strachey faintly, if I have never met him.
Another person who turned up during that week was Bertrand Rus-
sell. He came to Lockridge the day North Whitehead left for the front.
He was a pacifist and argumentative and although they were very old
friends Doctor and Mrs. Whitehead did not think they could bear hear-
ing his views just then. He came and Gertrude Stein, to divert every-
body's mind from the burning question of war or peace, introduced the
subject of education. This caught Russell and he explained all the weak-
nesses of the american system of education, particularly their neglect of
the study of greek, Gertrude Stein replied that of cpurse England which
was an island needed Greece which was or might have been an island.
At any rate greek was essentially an island culture, while America
needed essentially the culture of a continent which was of necessity
latin. This argument fussed Mr. Russell, he became very eloquent. Ger-
trude Stein then became very earnest and gave a long discourse on the
value of greek to the english, aside from its being an island, and the lack
of value of greek culture for the arnericans based upon the psychology
of americans as different from the psychology of the english. She grew
very eloquent on the disembodied abstract quality of the american char-
acter and cited examples, mingling automobiles with Emerson, and all
proving that they did not need greek, in a way that fussed Russell more
and more and kept everybody occupied until everybody went to bed.
There were many discussions in those days. The bishop, the brother
of Doctor Whitehead and his family came to lunch. They all talked con-
stantly about how England had come into the war to save Belgium. At
last my nerves could bear it no longer and I blurted out, why do you
say that, why do you not say that you are fighting for England, I do not
consider it a disgrace to fight for one's country.
Mrs. Bishop, the bishop's wife was very funny on this occasion. She
said solemnly to Gertrude Stein, Miss Stein you are I understand an im-
portant person in Paris. I think it would come very well from a neutral
like yourself to suggest to the french government that they give us
Pondichery. It would be very useful to us. Gertrude Stein replied po-
litely that to her great regret her importance such as it was was
among painters and writers and not with politicians. But that, said Mrs.
Bishop, would make no difference. You should I think suggest to the
THE WAR 127
french government that they give us Pondichery. After lunch Gertrude
Stein said to me under her breath, where the hell is Pondichery.
Gertrude Stein used to get furious when the english all talked about
german organisation. She used to insist that the germans had no or-
ganisation, they had method but no organisation. Don't you understand
the difference, she used to say angrily, any two americans, any twenty
americans, any millions of americans can organise themselves to do
something but germans cannot organise themselves to do anything, they
can formulate a method and this method can be put upon them but that
isn't organisation. The germans, she used to insist, are not modern, they
are a backward people who have made a method of what we conceive
as organisation, can't you see. They cannot therefore possibly win this
war because they are not modern.
Then another thing that used to annoy us dreadfully was the english
statement that the germans in America would turn America against the
allies. Don't be silly, Gertrude Stein used to say to any and all of them,
if you do not realise that the fundamental sympathy in America is with
France and England and could never be with a mediaeval country like
Germany, you cannot understand America. We are republican, she used
to say with energy, profoundly intensely and completely a republic and
a republic can have everything in common with France and a great deal
in common with England but whatever its form of government nothing
in common with Germany. How often I have heard her then and since
explain that americans are republicans living in a republic which is so
much a republic that it could never be anything else.
The long summer wore on. It was beautiful weather and beautiful
country, and Doctor Whitehead and Gertrude Stein never ceased wan-
dering around in it and talking about all things.
From time to time we went to London. We went regularly to Cook's
office to know when we might go back to Paris and they always answered
not yet. Gertrude Stein went to see John Lane. He was terribly upset.
He was passionately patriotic. He said of course he was doing nothing
at present but publishing war-books but soon very soon things would be
different or perhaps the war would be over.
Gertrude Stein's cousin and my father sent us money by the United
States cruiser Tennessee. We went to get it. We were each one put on
the scale and our heights measured and then they gave the money to
us. How, said we to one another, can a cousin who has not seen you in
128 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
ten years and a father who has not seen me for six years possibly know
our heights and our weights. It had always been a puzzle. Four years
ago Gertrude Stein's cousin came to Paris and the first thing she said
to him was, Julian how did you know my weight and height when you
sent me money by the Tennessee. Did I know it, he said. Well, she said,
at any rate they had written it down that you did. I cannot remember
of course, he said, but if any one were to ask me now I would naturally
send to Washington for a copy of your passport and I probably did that
then. And so was the mystery solved.
We also had to go to the american embassy to get temporary passports
to go back to Paris. We had no papers, nobody had any papers in those
days. Gertrude Stein as a matter of fact had what they called in Paris a
papier de matriculation which stated that she was an american and a
french resident.
The embassy was very full of not very american looking citizens wait-
ing their turn. Finally we were ushered in to a very tired looking young
american. Gertrude Stein remarked upon the number of not very ameri-
can looking citizens that were waiting. The young american sighed.
They are easier, he said, because they have papers, it is only the native
born american who has no papers. Well what do you do about them,
asked Gertrude Stein. We guess, he said, and we hope we guess right.
And now, said he, will you take the oath. Oh dear, he said, I have said it
so often I have forgotten it.
By the fifteenth of October Cook's said we could go back to Paris. Mrs.
Whitehead was to go with us. North, her son, had left without an over-
coat, and she had secured one and she was afraid he would not get it
until much later if she sent it the ordinary way. She arranged to go to
Paris and deliver it to him herself or find some one who would take it
to him directly. She had papers from the war office and Kitchener and
we started.
I remember the leaving London very little, I cannot even remember
whether it was day-light or not but it must have been because when
we were on the channel boat it was day-light. The boat was crowded.
There were quantities of belgian soldiers and officers escaped from Ant-
werp, all with tired eyes. It was our first experience of the tired but
watchful eyes of soldiers. We finally were able to arrange a seat for Mrs.
Whitehead who had been ill and soon we were in France. Mrs. White-
head's papers were so overpowering that there were no delays and soon
THE WAR 129
we were in the train and about ten o'clock at night we were in Paris. We
took a taxi and drove through Paris, beautiful and unviolated, to the
rue de Fleurus. We were once more at home.
Everybody who had seemed so far away came to see us. Alfy Maurer
described being on the Marne at his favourite village, he always fished
the Marne, and the mobilisation locomotive coming and the germans
were coming and he was so frightened and he tried to get a conveyance
and finally after terrific efforts he succeeded and got back to Paris. As
he left Gertrude Stein went with him to the door and came back smiling.
Mrs. Whitehead said with some constraint, Gertrude you have always
spoken so warmly of Alfy Maurer but how can you like a man who
shows himself not only selfish but a coward and at a time like this. He
thought only of saving himself and he after all was a neutral. Gertrude
Stein burst out laughing. You foolish woman, she said, didn't you un-
derstand, of course Alfy had his girl with him and he was scared to death
lest she should fall into the hands of the germans.
There were not many people in Paris just then and we liked it and we
wandered around Paris and it was so nice to be there, wonderfully nice.
Soon Mrs. Whitehead found means of sending her son's coat to him and
went back to England and we settled down for the winter.
Gertrude Stein sent copies of her manuscripts to friends in New York
to keep for her. We hoped that all danger was over but still it seemed
better to do so and there were Zeppelins to come. London had been com-
pletely darkened at night before we left. Paris continued to have its usual
street lights until January.
How it all happened I do not at all remember but it was through Carl
Van Vechten and had something to do with the Nortons, but at any
rate there was a letter from Donald Evans proposing to publish three
manuscripts to make a small book and would Gertrude Stein suggest
a title for them. Of these three manuscripts two had been written during
our first trip into Spain and Food, Rooms etcetera, immediately on our
return. They were the beginning, as Gertrude Stein would say, of mixing
the' outside with the inside. Hitherto she had been concerned with seri-
ousness and the inside of things, in these studies she began to describe
the inside as seen from the outside. She was awfully pleased at the idea
of these three things being published, and immediately consented, and
suggested the title of Tender Buttons. Donald Evans called his firm the
Claire Marie and he sent over a contract just like any other contract.
130 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
We took it for granted that there was a Claire Marie but there evidently
was not. There were printed of this edition I forget whether it was seven
hundred and fifty or a thousand copies but at any rate it was a very
charming little book and Gertrude Stein was enormously pleased, and
it, as every one knows, had an enormous influence on all young writers
and started ofl columnists in the newspapers of the whole country on
their long campaign of ridicule. I must say that when the columnists are
really funny, and they quite often are, Gertrude Stein chuckles and reads
them aloud to me.
In the meantime the dreary winter of fourteen and fifteen went on.
One night, I imagine it must have been about the end of January, I had
as was and is my habit gone to bed very early, and Gertrude Stein was
down in the studio working, as was her habit. Suddenly I heard her call
me gently. What is it, I said. Oh nothing, said she, but perhaps if you
don't mind putting on something warm and coming downstairs I think
perhaps it would be better. What is it, I said, a revolution. The concierges
and the wives of the concierges were all always talking about a revolu-
tion. The french are so accustomed to revolutions, they have had so
many, that when anything happens they immediately think and say,
revolution. Indeed Gertrude Stein once said rather impatiently to some
french soldiers when they said something about a revolution, you are
silly, you have had one perfectly good revolution and several not quite
so good ones; for an intelligent people it seems to me foolish to be always
thinking of repeating yourselves. They looked very sheepish and said,
bien sur mademoiselle, in other words, sure you're right.
Well I too said when she woke me, is it a revolution and are there
soldiers. No, she said, not exactly. Well what is it, said I impatiently. I
don't quite know, she answered, but there has been an alarm. Anyway
you had better come. I started to turn on the light. No, she said, you had
better not. Give me your hand and I will get you down and you can go
to sleep down stairs on the couch. I came. It was very dark. I sat down
on the couch and then 1 said, I'm sure I don't know what is the matter
with me but my knees are knocking together. Gertrude Stein burst out
laughing, wait a minute, I will get you a blanket, she said. No don't leave
me, I said. She managed to find something to cover me and then there
was a loud boom, then several more. It was a soft noise and then there
was the sound of horns blowing in the streets and then we knew it was
all over. We lighted the lights and went to bed.
THE WAR 131
I must say I would not have believed it was true that knees knocked
together as described in poetry and prose if it had not happened to me.
The next time there was a Zeppelin alarm and it was not very long
after this first one, Picasso and Eve were dining with us. By this time
we knew that the two-story building of the atelier was no more pro-
tection than the roof of the little pavilion under which we slept and the
concierge had suggested that we should go into her room where at least
we would have six stories over us. Eve was not very well these days and
and fearful so we all went into the concierge's room. Even Jeanne Poule
the Breton servant who had succeeded Helene, came too. Jeanne soon
was bored with this precaution and so in spite of all remonstrance, she
went back to her kitchen, lit her light, in spite of the regulations, and
proceeded to wash the dishes. We soon too got bored with the concierge's
loge and went back to the atelier. We put a candle under the table so
that it would not make much light, Eve and I tried to sleep and Picasso
and Gertrude Stein talked until two in the morning when the all's clear
sounded and they went home.
Picasso and Eve were living these days on the rue Schcclcher in a
rather sumptuous studio apartment that looked over the cemetery. It was
not very gay. The only excitement were the letters from Guillaume
Apollinaire who was falling off of horses in the endeavour to become an
artilleryman. The only other intimates at that time were a russian whom
they called G. Apostrophe and his sister the baron ne. They bought all
the Rousseaus that were in Rousseau's atelier when he died. They had
an apartment in the boulevard Raspail above Victor Hugo's tree and
they were not unamusing. Picasso learnt the russian alphabet from them
and began putting it into some of his pictures.
It was not a very cheerful winter. People came in and out, new ones
and old ones. Ellen La Motte turned up, she was very heroic but gun shy.
She wanted to go to Servia and Emily Chadbourne wanted to go with
her but they did not go.
Gertrude Stein wrote a little novelette about this event.
Ellen La Motte collected a set of souvenirs of the war for her cousin
Dupont de Nemours. The stories of how she got them were diverting.
Everybody brought you souvenirs in those days, steel arrows that pierced
horses' heads, pieces of shell, ink-wells made out of pieces of shell, hel-
mets, some one even offered us a piece of a Zeppelin or an aeroplane,
I forget which, but we declined. It was a strange winter and nothing
132 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
and everything happened. If I remember rightly it was at this time that
some one, I imagine it was Apollinaire on leave, gave a concert and a
reading of Blaise Cedrars' poems. It was then that I first heard mentioned
and first heard the music of Erik Satie. I remember this took place in
some one's atelier and the place was crowded. It was in these days too that
the friendship betwefen Gertrude Stein and Juan Gris began. He was
living in the rue Ravignan in the studio where Salmon had been shut
up when he ate my yellow fantaisie.
We used to go there quite often. Juan was having a hard time, no one
was buying pictures and the french artists were not in want because they
were at the front and their wives or their mistresses if they had been
together a certain number of years were receiving an allowance. There
was one bad case, Herbin, a nice little man but so tiny that the army dis-
missed him. He said ruefully the pack he had to carry weighed as much
as he did and it was no use, he could not manage it. He was returned
home inapt for service and he came near starving. I don't know who
told us about him, he was one of the early simple earnest cubists. Luckily
Gertrude Stein succeeded in interesting Roger Fry. Roger Fry took him
and his painting over to England where he made and I imagine still has
a considerable reputation.
Juan Gris' case was more difficult. Juan was in those days a tormented
and not particularly sympathetic character. He was very melancholy and
effusive and as always clear sighted and intellectual. He was at that time
painting almost entirely in black and white and his pictures were very
sombre. Kahnweiler who had befriended him was an exile in Switzer-
land, Juan's sister in Spain was able to help him only a little. His situa-
tion was desperate.
It was just at this time that the picture dealer who afterwards, as the
expert in the Kahnweiler sale said he was going to kill cubism, under-
took to save cubism and he made contracts with all the cubists who were
still free to paint. Among them was Juan Gris and for the moment he
was saved.
As soon as we were back in Paris we went to see Mildred Aldrich. She
was within the military area so we imagined we would have to have a
special permit to go and see her. We went to the police station of our
quarter and asked them what we should do. He said what papers have
you. We have american passports,, french matriculation papers, said Ger-
trude Stein taking out a pocket full. He looked at them all and said and
THE WAR 133
what is this, of another yellow paper. That, said Gertrude Stein, is a re-
ceipt from my bank for the money I have just deposited. I think, said he
solemnly, I would take that along too. I think, he added, with all those
you will not have any trouble.
We did not as a matter of fact have to show any one any papers. We
stayed with Mildred several days.
She was much the most cheerful person we knew that winter. She had
been through the battle of the Marne, she had had the Uhlans in the
woods below her, she had watched the battle going on below her and
she had become part of the country-side. We teased her and told her she
was beginning to look like a french peasant and she did, in a funny kind
of way, born and bred new englander that she was. It was always aston-
ishing that the inside of her little french peasant house with french fur-
niture, french paint and a french servant and even a french poodle,
looked completely american. We saw her several times that winter.
At last the spring came and we were ready to go away for a bit. Our
friend William Cook after nursing a while in the american hospital for
french wounded had gone again to Palma de Mallorca. Cook who had
always earned his living by painting was finding it difficult to get on and
he had retired to Palma where in those days when the Spanish exchange
was very low one lived extremely well for a few francs a day.
We decided we w6uld go to Palma too and forget the war a little. We
had only the temporary passports that had been given to us in London
so we went to the embassy to get permanent ones with which we might
go to Spain. We were first interviewed by a kindly old gentleman most
evidently not in the diplomatic service. Impossible, he said, why, said
he, look at me, I have lived in Paris for forty years and come of a long
line of americans and I have no passport. No, he said, you can have a
passport to go to America or you can stay in France without a passport.
Gertrude Stein insisted upon seeing one of the secretaries of the embassy.
We saw a flushed reddish-headed one. He told us exactly the same thing.
Gertrude Stein listened quietly. She then said, but so and so who is
exactly in my position, a native born american, has lived the same length
of time in Europe, is a writer and has no intention of returning to Amer-
ica at present, has just received a regular passport from your department.
I think, said the young man still more flushed, there must be some error.
It is very simple, replied Gertrude Stein, to verify it by looking the mat-
ter up in your records. He disappeared and presently came back and said,
134 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
yes you are quite correct but you see it was a very special case. There can
be, said Gertrude Stein severely, no privilege extended to one american
citizen which is not to be, given similar circumstances, accorded to any
,other american citizen. He once more disappeared and came back and
said, yes yes now may I go through the preliminaries. He then explained
that they had orders to give out as few passports as possible but if any
one really wanted one why of course it was quite alright. We got ours
in record time.
And we went to Palma thinking to spend only a few weeks but we
stayed the winter. First we went to Barcelona. It was extraordinary to
see so many men on the streets. I did not imagine there could be so many
men left in the world. One's eyes had become so habituated to menless
streets, the few men one saw being in uniform and therefore not being
men but soldiers, that to see quantities of men walking up and down the
Ramblas was bewildering. We sat in the hotel window and looked. I
went to bed early and got up early and Gertrude Stein went to bed late
and got up late and so in a way we overlapped but there was not a mo-
ment whan there were not quantities of men going up and down the
Ramblas.
We arrived in Palma once again and Cook met us and arranged every-
thing for us. William Cook could always be depended upon. In those
days he was poor but later when he had inherited money and was well
to do and Mildred Aldrich had fallen upon very bad ways and Gertrude
Stein was not able to help any more, William Cook gave her a blank
cheque and said, use that as much as you need for Mildred, you know
my mother loved to read her books.
William Cook often disappeared and one knew nothing of him and
then when for one reason or another you needed him there he was. He
went into the american army later and at that time Gertrude Stein and
myself were doing war work for the American Fund for French
Wounded and I had often to wake her up very early. She and Cook
used to write the most lugubrious letters to each other about the un-
pleasantness of sunrises met suddenly. Sunrises were, they contended,
alright when approached slowly from the night before, but when faced
abruptly from the same morning they were awful. It was William Cook
too who later on taught Gertrude Stein how to drive a car by teaching
her on one of the old battle of the Marne taxis. Cook being hard up had
become a taxi driver in Paris, that was in sixteen and Gertrude Stein
THE WAR 135
was to drive a car for the American Fund for French Wounded. So on
dark nights they went out beyond the fortifications and the two of them
sitting solemnly on the driving seat of one of those old two-cylinder
before-the-war Renault taxis, William Cook taught Gertrude Stein how
to drive. It was William Cook who inspired the only movie Gertrude
Stein ever wrote in english, 1 have just published it in Operas and Plays
in the Plain Edition. The only other one she ever wrote, also in Operas
and Plays, many years later and in french, was inspired by her white
poodle dog called Basket.
But to come back to Palma de Mallorca. We had been there two sum-
mers before and had liked it and we liked it again. A great many ameri-
cans seem to like it now but in those days Cook and ourselves were the
only americans to inhabit the island. There were a few english, about
three families there. There was a descendant of one of Nelson's captains,
a Mrs. Penfold, a sharp-tongued elderly lady and her husband. It was
she who said to young Mark Gilbert, an english boy of sixteen with
pacifist tendencies who had at tea at her house refused cake, Mark you
are either old enough to fight for your country or young enough to eat
cake. Mark ate cake.
There were several french families there, the french consul, Monsieur
Marchand with a charming italian wife whom we soon came to know
very well. It was he who was very much amused at a story we had to
tell him of Morocco. He had been attached to the french residence at
Tangiers at the moment the french induced Moulai Hafid the then
sultan of Morocco to abdicate. We had been in Tangiers at that time for
ten days, it was during that fiist trip to Spain when so much happened
that was important to Gertrude Stein,
We had taken on a guide Mohammed and Mohammed had taken a
fancy to us. He became a pleasant companion rather than a guide and
we used to take long walks together and he used to take us to see his
cousins' wonderfully clean arab middle class homes and drink tea. We
enjoyed it all. He also told us all about politics. He had been educated
in Moulai Hafid's palace and he knew everything that was happening.
He told us just how much money Moulai Hafid would take to abdicate
and just when he would be ready to do it. We liked these stories as we
liked all Mohammed's stories always ending up with, and when you
come back there will be street cars and then we won't have to walk and
that will be nice. Later in Spain we read in the papers that it had all
136 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
happened exactly as Mohammed had said it would and we paid no fur-
ther attention. Once in talking of our only visit to Morocco we told
Monsieur Marchand this story. He said, yes that is diplomacy, probably
the only people in the world who were not arabs who knew what the
french government wanted so desperately to know were you two and
you knew it quite by accident and to you it was of no importance.
Life in Palma was pleasant and so instead of travelling any more that
summer we decided to settle down in Palma. We sent for our french
servant Jeanne Poule and with the aid of the postman we found a little
house on the calle de Dos de Mayo in Terreno, just outside of Palma,
and we settled down. We were very content. Instead of spending only
the summer we stayed until the following spring.^
We had been for some time members of Mudie's Library in London
and wherever we went Mudie's Library books came to us. It was at this
time that Gertrude Stein read aloud to me all of Queen Victoria's letters
and she herself became interested in missionary autobiographies and
diaries. There were a great many in Mudie's Library and she read them
all.
It was during this stay at Palma de Mallorca that most of the plays
afterwards published in Geography and Plays were written. She always
says that a certain kind of landscape induces plays and the country
around Terreno certainly did.
We had a dog, a mallorcan hound, the hounds slightly crazy, who
dance in the moonlight, striped, not all one colour as the Spanish hound
of the continent. We called this dog Polybe because we were pleased
with the articles in the Figaro signed Polybe. Polybe was, as Monsieur
Marchand said, like an arab, bon accueil a tout le monde et fidele a
personne. He had an incurable passion for eating filth and nothing
would stop him. We muzzled him to see if that would cure him, but this
so outraged the russian servant of the english consul that we had to give
it up. Then he took to annoying sheep. We even took to quarrelling with
Cook about Polybe. Cook had a fox terrier called Marie-Rose and we
were convinced fhat Marie-Rose led Polybe into mischief and then vir-
tuously withdrew and let him take the blame. Cook was convinced that
we did not know how to bring up Polybe. Polybe had one nice trait.
He would sit in a chair and gently smell large bunches of tube-roses with
which I always filled a vase in the centre of the room on the floor. He
never tried to eat them, he just gently smelled them. When we left we
THE WAR 137
left Polybe behind us in the care of one of the guardians of the old
fortress of Belver. When we saw him a week after he did not know us
or his name. Polybe comes into many of the plays Gertrude Stein wrote
at that time.
The feelings of the island at that time were very mixed as to the war.
The thing that impressed them the most was the amount of money it
cost. They could discuss by the hour, how much it cost a year, a month,
a week, a day, an hour and even a minute. We used to hear them of
a summer evening, five million pesetas, a million pesetas, two million
pesetas, good-night, good-night, and know they were busy with their
endless calculations of the cost of the war. As most of the men even those
of the better middle classes read wrote and ciphered with difficulty and
the women not at all, it can be imagined how fascinating and endless a
subject the cost of the war was.
One of our neighbours had a german governess and whenever there
was a german victory she hung out a german flag. We responded as well
as we could, but alas just then there were not many allied victories. The
lower classes were strong for the allies. The waiter at the hotel was al-
ways looking forward to Spain's entry into the war on the side of the
allies. He was certain that the Spanish army would be of great aid as it
could march longer on less food than any army in the world. The maid
at the hotel took great interest in my knitting for the soldiers. She said,
of course madame knits very slowly, all ladies do. But, said I hopefully,
if I knit for years may I not come to knit quickly, not as quickly as you
but quickly. No, said she firmly, ladies knit slowly. As a matter of fact
I did come to knit very quickly and could even read and knit quickly
at the same time.
We led a pleasant life, we walked a great deal and ate extremely well,
and were well amused by our Breton servant.
She was patriotic and always wore the tricolour ribbon around her hat.
She once came home very excited. She had just been seeing another
french servant and she said, imagine, Marie has just had news that her
brother was drowned and has had a civilian funeral. How did that hap-
pen, I asked also much excited. Why, said Jeanne, he had not yet been
called to the army. It was a great honour to have a brother have a civil-
ian funeral during the war. At any rate it was rare. Jeanne was content
with Spanish newspapers, she had no trouble reading them, as she said,
all the important words were in french.
138 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
Jeanne told -endless stories of french village life and Gertrude Stein
could listen a long time and then all of a sudden she could not listen
any more.
Life in Mallorca was pleasant until the attack on Verdun began. Then
we all began to be very miserable. We tried to console each other but it
was difficult. One of the frenchmen, an engraver who had palsy and in
spite of the palsy tried every few months to get the french consul to
accept him for the army, used to say we must not worry if Verdun is
taken, it is not an entry into France, it is only a moral victory for the
germans. But we were all desperately unhappy. I had been so confident
and now 1 had an awful feeling that the war had gotten out of my hands.
In the port of Palma was a german ship called the Fangturm which
sold pins and needles to all the Mediterranean ports before the war and
further, presumably, because it was a very big steamer. It had been
caught in Palma when the war broke out and had never been able to
leave. Most of the officers and sailors had gotten away to Barcelona but
the big ship remained in the harbour. It looked very rusty and neglected
and it was just under our windows. All of a sudden as the attack on Ver-
dun commenced, they began painting the Fangturm. Imagine our feel-
ings. We were all pretty unhappy and this was despair. We told the
french consul and he told us and it was awful.
Day by day the news was worse and one whole side of the Fangturm
was painted and then they stopped painting. They knew it before we
did. Verdun was not going to be taken. Verdun was safe. The germans
had given up hoping to take it.
When it was all over we none of us wanted to stay in Mallorca any
longer, we all wanted to go home. It was at this time that Cook and
Gertrude Stein spent all their time talking about automobiles. They
neither of them had ever driven but they were getting very interested.
Cook also began to wonder how he was going to earn his living when
he got to Paris. His tiny income did for Mallorca but it would not keep
him long in Paris. He thought of driving horses for Felix Potin's deliv-
ery wagons, he said after all he liked horses better than automobiles.
Anyway he went back to Paris and when we got there, we went a
longer way, by way of Madrid, he was driving a Paris taxi. Later on he
became a trier-out of cars for the Renault works and I can remember
how exciting it was when he described how the wind blew out his
THE WAR 139
cheeks when he made eighty kilometres an hour. Then later he joined
the american army.
We went home by way of Madrid. There we had a curious experience.
We went to the american consul to have our passports visaed. He was a
great big flabby man and he had a filipino as an assistant. He looked at
our passports, he measured them, weighed them, looked at them upside
down and finally said that he supposed they were alright but how could
he tell. He then asked the filipino what he thought. The filipino seemed
inclined to agree that the consul could not tell. I tell you what you do,
he said ingratiatingly, you go to the french consul since you are going
to France and you live in Paris and if the french consul says they are
alright, why the consul will sign. The consul sagely nodded.
We were furious. It was an awkward position that a french consul,
not an american one should decide whether american passports were
alright. However there was nothing else to do so we went to the french
consul.
When our turn came the man in charge took our passports and looked
them over and said to Gertrude Stein, when were you last in Spain. She
stopped to think, she never can remember anything when anybody asks
her suddenly, and she said she did not remember but she thought it was
such and such a date. He said no, and mentioned another year. She said
very likely he was right. Then he went on to give all the dates of her
various visits to Spain and finally he added a visit when she was still at
college when she was in Spain with her brother just after the Spanish
war. It was all in a way rather frightening to me standing by but Ger-
trude Stein and the assistant consul seemed to be thoroughly interested
in fixing dates. Finally he said, you see I was for many years in the letter
of credit department of the Credit Lyonnais in Madrid and I have a
very good memory and I remember, of course I remember you very
well. We were all very pleased. He signed the passports and told us to
go back and tell our consul to do so also.
At the time we were furious with our consul but now I wonder if it
was not an arrangement between the two offices that the american con-
sul should not sign any passport to enter France until the french consul
had decided whether its owner was or was not desirable.
We came back to an entirely different Paris. It was no longer gloomy.
It was no longer empty. This time we did not settle down, we decided
140 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
to get into the war. One day we were walking down the rue des Pyra-
mides and there was a ford car being backed up the street by an amer-
ican girl and on the car it said, American Fund for French Wounded.
There, said I, that is what we are going to do. At least, said I to Ger-
trude Stein, you will drive the car and I will do the rest. We went over
and talked to the american girl and then interviewed Mrs. Lathrop, the
head of the organisation. She was enthusiastic, she was always enthu-
siastic and she said, get a car. But where, we asked. From America, she
said. But how, we said. Ask somebody, she said, and Gertrude Stein did,
she asked her cousin and in a few months the ford car came. In the
meanwhile Cook had taught her to drive his taxi.
As I said it was a changed Paris. Everything was changed, and every-
body was cheerful.
During our absence Eve had died and Picasso was now living in a
little home in Montrouge. We went out to see him. He had a marvel-
lous rose pink silk counterpane on his bed. Where did that come from
Pablo, asked Gertrude Stein. Ah £a, said Picasso with much satisfaction,
that is a lady. It was a well known chilean society woman who had given
it to him. It was a marvel. He was very cheerful. He was constantly
coming to the house, bringing Paquerette a girl who was very nice or
Irene a very lovely woman who came from the mountains and wanted
to be free. He brought Erik Satie and the Princesse de Polignac and
Blaise Cendrars.
It was a great pleasure to know Erik Satie. He was from Normandy
and very fond of it. Marie Laurencin comes from Normandy, so also
does Braque. Once when after the war Satie and Marie Laurencin were
at the house for lunch they were delightfully enthusiastic about, each
other as being normans. Erik Satie liked food and wine and knew a
lot about both. We had at that time some very good eau de vie that the
husband of Mildred Aldrich's servant had given us and Erik Satie, drink-
ing his glass slowly and with appreciation, told stories of the country in
his youth.
Only once in the half dozen times that Erik Satie was at the house
did he talk about music. He said that it had always been his opinion
and he was glad that it was being recognised that modern french music
owned nothing to modern Germany. That after Debussy had led the
way french musicians had either followed him or found their own
french way.
THE WAR 141
He told charming stories, usually of Normandy, he had a playful wit
which was sometimes very biting. He was a charming dinner-guest. It
was many years later that Virgil Thomson, when we first knew him in
his tiny room near the Gare Saint-Lazare, played for us the whole of
Socrate. It was then that Gertrude Stein really became a Satie enthu-
siast.
Ellen La Motte and Emily Chadbourne, who had not gone to Serbia,
were still in Paris. Ellen La Motte, who was an ex Johns Hopkins nurse,
wanted to nurse near the front. She was still gun shy but she did want*
to nurse at the front, and they met Mary Borden-Turner who was run-
ning a hospital at the front and Ellen La Motte did for a few months
nurse at the front. After that she and Emily Chadbourne went to China
and after that became leaders of the anti-opium campaign.
Mary Borden-Turner had been and was going to be a writer. She was
very enthusiastic about the work of Gertrude Stein and travelled with
what she had of it and volumes of Flaubert to and from the front. She
had taken a house near the Bois and it was heated and during that win-
ter when the rest of us had no coal it was very pleasant going to dinner
there and being warm. We liked Turner. He was a captain in the British
army and was doing contre-espionage work very successfully. Although
married to Mary Borden he did not believe in millionaires. He insisted
upon giving his own Christmas party to the women and children in the
village in which he was billeted and he always said that after the war
he would be collector of customs for the British in Diisseldorf or go out
to Canada and live simply. After all, he used to say to his wife, you
are not a millionaire, not a real one. He had british standards of mil-
lionairedom. Mary Borden was very Chicago. Gertrude Stein always
says that chicagoans spent so much energy losing Chicago that often it is
difficult to know what they are. They have to lose the Chicago voice
and to do so they do many things. Somq lower their voices, some
raise them, some get an english accent, some even get a german ac-
cent, some drawl, some speak in a very high tense voice, and some go
Chinese or Spanish and do not move the lips. Mary Borden was very
Chicago and Gertrude Stein was immensely interested in her and in
Chicago.
All this time we were waiting for our ford truck which was on its
way and then we waited for its body to be built. We waited a great deal.
It was then that Gertrude Stein wrote a great many little war poems,
142 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
some of them have since beejri published in the volume Useful Knowl-
edge which has in it only things about America.
Stirred by the publication of Tender Buttons many newspapers had
taken up the amusement of imitating Gertrude Stein's work and mak-
ing fun of it. Life began a series that were called after Gertrude Stein.
Gertrude Stein suddenly one day wrote a letter to Masson who was
then editor of Life and said to him that the real Gertrude Stein was as
Henry McBride had pointed out funnier in every way than the imita-
tions, not to say much more interesting, and why did they not print the
original. To her astonishment she received a very nice letter from Mr.
Masson saying that he would be glad to do so. And they did. They
printed two things that she sent them, one about, Wilson and one longer
thing about war work in France. Mr. Masson had more courage than
most.
This winter Paris was bitterly cold and there was no coal. We finally
had none at all. We closed up the big room and stayed in a little room
but at last we had no more coal. The government was giving coal away
to the needy but we did not feel justified in sending our servant to stand
in line to get it. One afternoon it was bitterly cold, we went out and on
a street corner was a policeman and standing with him was a sergeant
of police. Gertrude Stein went up to them. Look here, she said to them,
what are we to do. I live in a pavilion on the rue de Fleurus and have
lived there many years. Oh yes, said they nodding their heads, certainly
madame we know you very well. Well, she said, I have no coal not
even enough to heat one small room. I do not want to send my servant
to get it for nothing, that does not seem right. Now, she said, it is up
to you to tell me what to do. The policeman looked at his sergeant and
the sergeant nodded. Alright, they said.
We went home. That evening the policeman in civilian clothes turned
up with two sacks of coal. We accepted thankfully and asked no ques-
tions. The policeman, a stalwart breton became our all in all. He did
everything for us, he cleaned our home, he cleaned our chimneys, he
got us in and he got us out and on dark nights when Zeppelins came
it was comfortable to know that he was somewhere outside.
There were Zeppelin alarms from time to time, but like everything
else we had gotten used to them. When they came at dinner time we
went on eating and when they came at night Gertrude Stein did not
wake me, she said I might as well stay where I was if I was asleep because
THE WAR 143
when asleep it took more than even the siren that they used then to give
the signal, to wake me.
Our little ford was almost ready. She was later to be called Auntie
after Gertrude Stein's aunt Pauline who always behaved admirably in
emergencies and behaved fairly well most times if she was properly
flattered.
One day Picasso came in and with him and leaning on his shoulder
was a slim elegant youth. It is Jean, announced Pablo, Jean Cocteau and
we are leaving for Italy.
Picasso had been excited at the prospect of doing the scenery for a
russian ballet, the music to be by Satie, the drama by Jean Cocteau.
Everybody was at the war, life in Montparnasse was not very gay, Mont-
rouge with even a faithful servant was not very lively, he loo needed a
change. He was very lively at the prospect of going to Rome. We all
said goodbye and we all went our various ways.
The little ford car was ready. Gertrude Stein had learned to drive a
french car and they all said it was the same. I have never driven any car,
but it would appear that it is not the same. We went outside of Paris to
get it when it was ready and Gertrude Stein drove it in. Of course the
first thing she did was to stop dead on the track between two street cars.
Everybody got out and pushed us off the track. The next day when we
started off to see what would happen we managed to get as far as the
Champs Elysccs and once more stopped dead. A crowd shoved us to the
side walk and then tried to find out what was the matter. Gertrude Stein
cranked, the whole crowd cranked, nothing happened. Finally an old
chauffeur said, no gasoline. We said proudly, oh yes at least a gallon, but
he insisted on looking and of course there was none. Then the crowd
stopped a whole procession of military trucks that were going up the
Champs Elysees. They all stopped and a couple of them brought over
an immense tank of gasoline and tried to pour it into the little ford.
Naturally the process was not successful. Finally getting into a taxi I
went to a store in our quarter where they sold brooms and gasoline and
where they knew me and I came back with a tin of gasoline and we
finally arrived at the Alcazar d'Ete, the then headquarters of the Amer-
ican Fund for French Wounded.
Mrs. Lathrop was waiting for one of the cars to take her to Mont-
martre. I immediately offered the service of our car and went out and
told Gertrude Stein. She quoted Edwin Dodge to me. Once Mabel
144 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
Dodge's little boy said he would like to fly from the terrace to the lower
garden. Do, said Mabel. It is easy, said Edwin Dodge, to be a spartan
mother.
However Mrs. Lathrop came and the car went off. I must confess to
being terribly nervous until they came back but come back they did.
We had a consultation with Mrs. Lathrop and she sent us off to Per-
pignan, a region with a good many hospitals that no american organisa-
tion had ever visited. We started. We had never been further from Paris
than Fontainbleau in the car and it was terribly exciting.
We had a few adventures, we were caught in the snow and I was sure
that we were on the wrong road and wanted to turn back. Wrong or
right, said Gertrude Stein, we are going on. She could not back the car
very successfully and indeed I may say even to this day when she can
drive any kind of a car anywhere she still does not back a car very well.
She goes forward admirably, she does not go backwards successfully.
The only violent discussions that we have had in connection with her
driving a car have been on the subject of backing.
On this trip South we picked up our first military god-son. We began
the habit then which we kept up all though the war of giving any sol-
dier on the road a lift. We drove by day and we drove by night and in
very lonely parts of France and we always stopped and gave a lift to any
soldier, and never had we any but the most pleasant experiences with
these soldiers. And some of them were as we sometimes found out pretty
hard characters. Gertrude Stein once said to a soldier who was doing
something for her, they were always doing something for her, whenever
there was a soldier or a chauffeur or any kind of a man anywhere, she
never did anything for herself, neither changing a tyre, cranking the car
or repairing it. Gertrude Stein said to this soldier, but you are tellement
gentil, very nice and kind. Madame, said he quite simply, all soldiers
are nice and kind.
This faculty of Gertrude Stein of having everybody do anything for
her puzzled the other drivers of the organisation. Mrs. Lathrop who used
to drive her own car said that nobody did those things for her. It was
not only soldiers, a chauffeur would get off the sea*t of a private car in the
place Vendome and crank Gertrude Stein's old ford for her. Gertrude
Stein said that the others looked so efficient, of course nobody would
think of doing anything for them. Now as for herself she was not effi-
cient, she was good humoured, she was democratic, one person was as
THE WAR 145
good as another, and she knew what she wanted done. If you are like
that she says, anybody will do anything for you. The important thing, she
insists, is that you must have deep down as the deepest thing in you a
sense of equality. Then anybody will do anything for you.
It was not far from Saulieu that we picked up our first military god-
son. He was a butcher in a tiny village not far from Saulieu. Our taking
him up was a good example of the democracy of the french army. There
were three of them walking along the road. We stopped and said we
could take one of them on the step. They were all three going home on
leave and walking into the country to their homes from the nearest big
town. One was a lieutenant, one was a sergeant and one a soldier. They
thanked us and then the lieutenant said to each one of them, how far
have you to go. They each one named the distance and then they said,
and you my lieutenant, how far have you to go. He told them. Then
they all agreed that it was the soldier who had much the longest way to
go and so it was his right to have the lift. He touched his cap to his
sergeant and officer and got in.
As I say he was our first military god-son. We had a great many after-
wards and it was quite an undertaking to keep them all going. The duty
of a military god-mother was to write a letter as often as she received
one and to send a package of comforts or dainties about once in ten
days. They liked the packages but they really liked letters even more.
And they answered so promptly. It seemed to me, no sooner was my
letter written than there was an answer. And then one had to remember
all their family histories and once I did a dreadful thing, I mixed my
letters and so I asked a soldier whose wife I knew all about and whose
mother was dead to remember me to his mother, and the one who had
the mother to remember me to his wife. Their return letters were quite
mournful. They each explained that I had made a mistake and I could
see that they had been deeply wounded by my error.
The most delightful god-son we ever had was one we took on in
Nimes. One day when we were in the town I dropped my purse. I did
not notice the loss until we returned to the hotel and then I was rather
bothered as there had been a good deal of money in it. While we were
eating our dinner the waiter said some one wanted to see us. We went
out and there was a man holding the purse in his hand. He said he had
picked it up in the street and as soon as his work was over had come to
the hotel to give it to us. There was a card of mine in the purse and he
146 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
took it for granted that a stranger would be at the hotel, beside by that
time we were very well known in Nimes. I naturally offered him a con-
siderable reward from the contents of the purse but he said no. He said
however that he had a favour to ask. They were refugees from the Marne
and his son Abel now seventeen years old had just volunteered and was
at present in the garrison at Nimes, would I be his god-mother. I said
I would, and I asked him to tell his son to come to see me his first free
evening. The next evening the youngest, the sweetest, the smallest sol-
dier imaginable came in. It was Abel.
We became very attached to Abel. I always remember his first letter
from the front. He began by saying that he was really not very much
surprised by anything at the front, it was exactly as it had been described
to him and as he had imagined it, except that there being no tables one
was compelled to write upon one's knees.
The next time we saw Abel he was wearing the red fourragere, his
regiment as a whole had been decorated with the legion of honour and
we were very proud of our filleul. Still later when we went into Alsace
with the french army, after the armistice, we had Abel come and stay
with us a few days and a proud boy he was when he climbed to the top
of the Strasbourg cathedral.
When we finally returned to Paris, Abel came and stayed with us a
week. We took him to see everything and he said solemnly at the end
of his first day, I think all that was worth fighting for. Paris in the eve-
ning however frightened him and we always had to get somebody to go
out with him. The front had not been scareful but Paris at night was.
Some time later he wrote and said that the family were moving into a
different department and he gave me his new address. By some error
the address did not reach him and we lost him.
We did finally arrive at Perpignan and began visiting hospitals and
giving away our stores and sending word to headquarters if we thought
they needed more than we had. At first it was a little difficult but soon
we were doing all we were to do very well. We were also given quan-
tities of comfort-bags and distributing these was a perpetual delight, it
was like a continuous Christmas. We always had permission from the
head of the hospital to distribute these to the soldiers themselves which
was in itself a great pleasure but also it enabled us to get the soldiers to
immediately write postal cards of thanks and these we used to send off
THE WAR 147
in batches to Mrs. Lathrop who sent them to America to the people who
had sent the comfort-bags. And so everybody was pleased.
Then there was the question of gasoline. The American Fund for
French Wounded had an order from the f rench government giving them
the privilege of buying gasoline. But there was no gasoline to buy. The
french army had plenty of it and were ready to give it to us but they
could not sell it and we were privileged to buy it but not to receive it
for nothing. It was necessary to interview the officer in command of the
commissary department.
Gertrude Stein was perfectly ready to drive the car anywhere, to crank
the car as often as there was nobody else to do it, to repair the car, I
must say she was very good at it, even if she was not ready to take it all
down and put it back again for practice as I wanted her to do in the
beginning, she was even resigned to getting up in the morning, but she
flatly refused to go inside of any office and interview any official. I was
officially the delegate and she was officially the driver but I 'had to go
and interview the major.
He was a charming major. The affair was very long drawn out, he
sent me here and he sent me there but finally the matter was straightened
out. All this time of course he called me Mademoiselle Stein because
Gertrude Stein's name was on all the papers that I presented to him,
she being the driver. And so now, he said, Mademoiselle Stein, my wife
is very anxious to make your acquaintance and she has asked me to ask
you to dine with us. I was very confused. I hesitated. But I am not
Mademoiselle Stein, I said. He almost jumped out of his chair. What,
he shouted, not Mademoiselle Stein. Then who are you. It must be re-
membered this was war time and Perpignan almost at the Spanish fron-
tire. Well, said I, you see Mademoiselle Stein. Where is Mademoiselle
Stein, he said. She is downstairs, I said feebly, in the automobile. Well
what does all this mean, he said. Well, I said, you see Mademoiselle
Stein is the driver and I am the delegate and Mademoiselle Stein has no
patience 'she will not go into offices and wait and interview people and
explain, so I do it for her while she sits in the automobile. But what, said
he sternly, would you have done if I had asked you to sign something.
I would have told you, I said, as I am telling you now. Indeed, he said,
let us go downstairs and see this Mademoiselle Stein.
We went downstairs and Gertrude Stein was sitting in the driver's seat
148 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
of the little ford and he came up to her. They immediately became
friends and he renewed his invitation and we went to dinner. We had a
good time. Madame Dubois came from Bordeaux, the land of food and
wine. And what food above all the soup. It still remains to me the stand-
ard of comparison with all the other soups in the world. Sometimes some
approach it, a very few have equalled it but none have surpassed it.
Perpignan is not far from Rivesaltes and Rivesaltes is the birthplace
of JofTre. It had a little hospital and we got it extra supplies in honour
of Papa JorTre. We had also the little ford car showing the red cross and
the A.F.F.W. sign and ourselves in it photographed in front of the house
in the little street where JofTre was born and had this photograph printed
and sent to Mrs. Lathrop. The postal cards were- sent to America and
sold for the benefit of the fund. In the meantime the U.S. had come into
the war and we had some one send us a lot of ribbon with the stars and
stripes printed on it and we cut this up and gave it to all the soldiers
and they and we were pleased.
Which reminds me of a french peasant. Later in Nimes we had an
american ambulance boy in the car with us and we were out in the
country. The boy had gone off to visit a waterfall and I had gone off to
see a hospital and Gertrude Stein stayed with the car. She told me when
I came back that an old peasant had come up to her and asked her what
uniform the young man was wearing. That, she had said proudly, is the
uniform of the american army, your new ally. Oh, said the old peasant.
And then contemplatively, I ask myself what will we accomplish to-
gether, je me demande je me demande qu'est-ce que nous ferons en-
semble.
Our work in Perpignan being over we started back to Paris. On the
way everything happened to the car. Perhaps it had been too hot even
for a ford car in Perpignan. Perpignan is below sea level near the Medi-
terranean and it is hot. Gertrude Stein who had always wanted it hot
and hotter has never been really enthusiastic about heat after this experi-
ence. She said she had been just like a pancake, the heat above and the
heat below and cranking a car beside. I do not know how often she used
to swear and say, I am going to scrap it, that is all there is about it I am
going to scrap it. I encouraged and remonstrated until the car started
again.
It was in connection with this that Mrs. Lathrop played a joke on
THE WAR 149
Gertrude Stein. After the war was over we were both decorated by the
french government, we received the Reconnaissance Franchise. They
always in giving you a decoration give you a citation telling why you
have been given it. The account of our valour was exactly the same, ex-
cept in my case they said that my devotion was sans relache, with no
abatement, and in her case they did not put in the words san relache.
On the way back to Paris we, as I say had everything happen to the
car but Gertrude Stein with the aid of an old tramp on the road who
pushed and shoved at the critical moments managed to get it to Nevers
where we met the first piece of the american army. They were the
quartermasters department and the marines, the first contingent to ar-
rive in France. There we first heard what Gertrude Stein calls the sad
song "of the marines, which tells how everybody else in the american
army has at sometime mutinied, but the marines never.
Immediately on entering Nevers, we saw Tarn McGrew, a californian
and parisian whom we had known very slightly but he was in uniform
and we called for help. He came. We told him our troubles. He said,
alright get the car into the garage of the hotel and to-morrow some of
the soldiers will put it to rights. We did so.
That evening we spent at Mr. McGrew's request at the Y. M. C. A.
and saw for the first time in many years americans just americans, the
kind that would not naturally ever have come to Europe. It was quite a
thrilling experience. Gertrude Stein of course talked to them all, wanted
to know what state and what city they came from, what they did, how
old they were and how they liked it. She talked to the french girls who
were with the american boys and the french girls told her what they
thought of the american boys and the american boys told her all they
thought about the french girls.
The next day she spent with California and Iowa in the garage, as she
called the two soldiers who were detailed to fix up her car. She was
pleased with them when every time there was a terrific noise anywhere,
they said solemnly to eaoh other, that french chauffeur is just changing
gears. Gertrude Stein, Iowa and California enjoyed themselves so thor-
oughly that I am sorry to say the car did not last out very well after we
left Nevers, but at any rate we did get to Paris.
It was at this time that Gertrude Stein conceived the idea of writing a
history of the United States consisting of chapters wherein Iowa differs
150 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
from Kansas, and wherein Kansas differs from Nebraska etcetera. She
did do a little of it which also was printed in the book, Useful Knowl-
edge.
We did not stay in Paris very long. As soon as the car was made over
we left for Nimes, we were to do the three departments the Card, the
Bouches-du-Rhone and the Vaucluse.
We arrived in Nimes and settled down to a very comfortable life there.
We went to see the chief military doctor in the town, Doctor Fabre and
through his great kindness and that of his wife we were soon very much
at home in Nimes, but before we began our work there, Doctor Fabre
asked a favour of us. There were no autombile ambulances left in Nimes.
At the military hospital was a pharmacist, a captain in the army, who
was very ill, certain to die, and wanted to die in his own home. His wife
was with him and would sit with him and we were to have no respon-
sibility for him except to drive him home. Of course we said we would
and we did.
It had been a long hard ride up into the mountains and it was dark
long before we were back. We were still some distance from Nimes when
suddenly on the road we saw a couple of figures. The old ford car's lights
did not light up much of anything on the road, and nothing along the
side of the road and we did not make out very well who it was. How-
ever we stopped as we always did when anybody asked us to give them
a lift. One man, he was evidently an officer said, my automobile has
broken down and I must get back to Nimes. Alright we said, both of
you climb into the back, you will find a mattress and things, make your-
selves comfortable. We went on to Nimes. As we came into the city I
called through the little window, where do you want to get down, where
are you going, a voice replied. To the Hotel Luxembourg, I said. That
will do alright, the voice replied. We arrived in front of the Hotel
Luxembourg and stopped. Here there was plenty of light. We heard a
scramble in the back and then a little man, very fierce with the cap and
oak leaves of a full general and the legion of honour medal at his throat,
appeared before us. He said, I wish to thank you but before I do so I
must ask you who you are. We, I replied cheerfully are the delegates
of the American Fund for French Wounded and we are for the present
stationed at Nimes. And I, he retorted, am the general who commands
here and as I see by your car that you have a french military number
you should have reported to me immediately. Should we, I said, I did
THE WAR 151
not know, I am most awfully sorry. It is alright, he said aggressively, if
you should ever want or need anything let me know.
We did let him know very shortly because of course there was the
eternal gasoline question and he was kindness itself and arranged every-
thing for us.
The little general and his wife came from the north of France and had
lost their home and spoke of themselves as refugees. When later the big
Bertha began to fire on Paris and one shell hit the Luxembourg gardens
very near the rue de Fleurus, I must confess I began to cry and said I did
not want to be a miserable refugee. We had been helping a good many
of them. Gertrude Stein said, General Frotier's family are refugees and
they are not miserable. More miserable than I want to be, I said bitterly.
Soon the american army came to .Nimes. One day Madame Fabre met
us and said that her cook had seen some american soldiers. She must
have mistaken some english soldiers for them, we said. Not at all, she
answered, she is very patriotic. At any rate the american soldiers came,
a regiment of them of the S. O. S. the service of supply, how well I re-
member how they used to say it with the emphasis on the of.
We soon got to know them all well and some of them very well. There
was Duncan, a southern boy with such a very marked southern accent
that when he was well into a story I was lost. Gertrude Stein whose peo-
ple all come from Baltimore had no difficulty and they used to shout with
laughter together, and all I could understand was that they had killed
him as if he was a chicken. The people in Nimes were as much troubled
as I was. A great many of the ladies in Nimes spoke english very well.
There had always been english governesses in Nimes, and they, the
nimoises had always prided themselves on their knowledge of english
but as they said not only could they not understand these americans but
these americans could not understand them when they spoke english. I
had to admit that it was more or less the same with me.
The soldiers were all Kentucky, South Carolina etcetera and they were
hard to understand.
Duncan was a dear. He was supply-sergeant to the camp and when
we began to find american soldiers here and there in french hospitals we
always took Duncan along to give the american soldier pieces of his lost
uniform and white bread. Poor Duncan was miserable because he was
not at the front. He had enlisted as far back as the expedition to Mexico
and here he was well in the rear and no hope of getting away because he
152 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
was one of the few who understood the complicated system of army
book-keeping and his officers would not recommend him for the front.
I will go, he used to say bitterly, they can bust me if they like I will go.
But as we told him there were plenty of A.W.O.L. absent without leave
the south was full of them, we were always meeting them and they
would say, say any military police around here. Duncan was not made
for that life. Poor Duncan. Two days before the armistice, he came in to
see us and he was drunk and bitter. He was usually a sober boy but to
go back and face his family never having been to the front was too awful.
He was with us in a little sitting-room and in the front room were some
of his officers and it would not do for them to see him in that state and
it was time for him to get back to the camp. He -had fallen half asleep
with his head on the table. Duncan, said Gertrude Stein sharply, yes,
he said. She said to him, listen Duncan. Miss Toklas is going to stand up,
you stand up too and fix your eyes right on the back of her head, do you
understand. Yes, he said. Well then she will start to walk and you follow
her and don't you for a moment move your eyes from the back of her
head until you are in my car. Yes, he said. And he did and Gertrude
Stein drove him to the camp.
Dear Duncan. It was he who was all excited by the news that the
americans had taken forty villages at Saint-MihieL He was to go with
us that afternoon to Avignon to deliver some cases. He was sitting very
straight on the step and all of a sudden his eye was caught by some houses.
What are they, he asked. Oh just a village, Gertrude Stein said. In a
minute there were some more houses. And what are those houses, he
asked. Oh just a village. He fell very silent and he looked at the land-
scape as he had never looked at it before. Suddenly with a deep sigh,
forty villages ain't so much, he said.
We did enjoy the life with these doughboys. I would like to tell noth-
ing but doughboy stories. They all got on amazingly well with the
french. They worked together in the repair sheds of the railroad. The
only thing that bothered the americans were the long hours. They
worked too concentratedly to keep it up so long. Finally an arrangement
was made that they should have their work to do in their hours and
the french in theirs. There was a great deal of friendly rivalry. The
american boys did not see the use of putting so much finish on work that
was to be shot up so soon again, the french said they could not complete
work without finish. But both lots thoroughly liked each other.
THE WAR 153
Gertrude Stein always said the war was so much better than just
going to America. Here you were with America in a kind of way that
if you only went to America you could not possibly be. Every now and
then one of the american soldiers would get into the hospital at Nimes
and as Doctor Fabre knew that Gertrude Stein had had a medical educa-
tion he always wanted her present with the doughboy on these occa-
sions. One of them fell off the train. He did not believe that the little
french trains could go fast but they did, fast enough to kill him.
This was a tremendous occasion. Gertrude Stein in company with
the wife of the prcfet, the governmental head of the department and the
wife of the general were the chief mourners. Duncan and two others
blew on the bugle and everybody made speeches. The Protestant pastor
asked Gertrude Stein about the dead man and his virtues and she asked
the doughboys. It was difficult to find any virtue. Apparently he had
been a fairly hard citizen. But can't you tell me something good about
him, she said despairingly. Finally Taylor, one of his friends, looked up
solemnly and said, I tell you he had a heart as big as a washtub.
I often wonder, I have often wondered if any of all these doughboys
who knew Gertrude Stein so well in those days ever connected her with
the Gertrude Stein of the newspapers.
We led a very busy life. There were all the americans, there were a
great many in the small hospitals round about as well as in the regiment
in Nimes and we had to find them all and be good to them, then there
were all the french in the hospitals, we had them to visit as this was
really our business, and then later came the Spanish grippe and Gertrude
Stein and one of the military doctors from Nimes used to go to all the
villages miles around to bring into Nimes the sick soldiers and officers
who had fallen ill in their homes while on leave.
It was during these long trips that she began writing a great deal again.
The landscape, the strange life stimulated her. It was then that she began
to love the valley of the Rhone, the landscape that of all landscapes means
the most to her. We are still here in Bilignin in the valley of the Rhone.
She wrote at that time the poem of The Deserter, printed almost im-
mediately in Vanity Fair. Henry McBride had interested Crowninshield
in her work.
One day when we were in Avignon we met Braque. Braque had been
badly wounded in the head and had come to Sorgues near Avignon to
recover. It was there that he had been staying when the mobilisation
154 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
orders came to him. It was awfully pleasant seeing the Braques again.
Picasso had just written to Gertrude Stein announcing his marriage to a
jeune fille, a real young lady, and he had sent Gertrude Stein a wedding
present of a lovely little painting and a photograph of a painting of his
wife.
That lovely little painting he copied for me many years later on
tapestry canvas and I embroidered it and that was the beginning of my
tapestrying. I did not think it possible to ask him to draw me something
to work but when I told Gertrude Stein she said, alright, I'll manage.
And so one day when he was at the house she said, Pablo, Alice wants to
make a tapestry of that little picture and I said I would trace it for her.
He looked at her with kindly contempt, if it is done by anybody, he said,
it will be done by me. Well, said Gertrude Stein, producing a piece of
tapestry canvas, go to it, and he did. And I have been making tapestry
of his drawings ever since and they are very successful and go marvel-
lously with old chairs. I have done two small Louis fifteenth chairs in
this way. He is kind enough now to make me drawings on my working
canvas and to colour them for me.
Braque also told us that Apollinaire too had married a real young
lady. We gossiped a great deal together. But after all there was little
news to tell.
Time went on, we were very busy and then came the armistice. We
were the first to bring the news to many small villages. The french sol-
diers in the hospitals were relieved rather than glad. They seemed not to
feel that it was going to be such a lasting peace. I remember one of them
saying to Gertrude Stein when she said to him, well here is peace, at
least for twenty years, he said.
The next morning we had a telegram from Mrs. Lathrop. Come at
once want you to go with the french armies to Alsace. We did not stop
on the way. We made it in a day. Very shortly after we left for Alsace.
We left for Alsace and on the road had our first and only accident.
The roads were frightful, mud, ruts, snow, slush, and covered with the
french armies going into Alsace. As we passed, two horses dragging an
army kitchen kicked out of line and hit our ford, the mud-guard came
off and the tool-chest, and worst of all the triangle of the steering gear
was badly bent. The army picked up our tools and our mud-guard but
there was nothing to do about the bent triangle. We went on, the car
wandering all over the muddy road, up hill and down hill, and Ger-
THE WAR 155
trude Stein sticking to the wheel. Finally after about forty kilometres,
we saw on the road some american ambulance men. Where can we get
our car fixed. Just a little farther, they said. We went a little farther
and there found an american ambulance outfit. They had no extra mud-
guard but they could give us a new triangle. I told our troubles to the
sergeant, he grunted and said a word in an undertone to a mechanic.
Then turning to us he said gruffly, run-her-in. Then the mechanic took
off his tunic and threw it over the radiator. As Gertrude Stein said when
any american did that the car was his.
We had never realised before what mud-guards were for but by the
time we arrived in Nancy we knew. The french military repair shop
fitted us out with a new mud-guard and tool-chest and we went on our
way.
Soon we came to the battle-fields and the lines of trenches of both
sides. To any one who did not see it as it was then it is impossible to
imagine it. It was not terrifying it was strange. We were used to ruined
houses and even ruined towns but this was different. It was a landscape.
And it belonged to no country.
I remember hearing a french nurse once say and the only thing she did
say of the front was, c'est un paysage passionant, an absorbing landscape.
And that was what it was as we saw it. It was strange. Camouflage, huts,
everything was there. It was wet and dark and there were a few people,
one did not know whether they were chinamen or europeans. Our fan-
belt had stopped working. A staff car stopped and fixed it with a hairpin,
we still wore hairpins.
Another thing that interested us enormously was how different the
camouflage of the french looked from the camouflage of the germans,
and then once we came across some very very neat camouflage and it was
american. The idea was the same but as after all it was different nation-
alities who did it the difference was inevitable. The colour schemes were
different, the designs were different, the way of placing them was differ-
ent, it made plain the whole theory of art and its inevitability.
Finally we came to Strasbourg and then went on to Mulhouse. Here
we stayed until well into May.
Our business in Alsace was not hospitals but refugees. The inhabitants
were returning to their ruined homes all over the devastated country and
it was the aim of the A.F.F.W. to give a pair of blankets, underclothing
and children's and babies' woollen stockings and babies' booties to every
156 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
family. There was a legend that the quantity of babies' booties sent to us
came from the gifts sent to Mrs. Wilson who was supposed at that time
to be about to produce a little Wilson. There were a great many babies'
booties but not too many for Alsace.
Our headquarters was the assembly-room of one of the big school-
buildings in Mulhouse. The german school teachers had disappeared
and french school teachers who happened to be in the army had been
put in temporarily to teach. The head of our school was in despair, not
about the docility of his pupils nor their desire to learn french, but on
account of their clothes. French children are all always neatly clothed.
There is no such thing as a ragged child, even orphans farmed out in
country villages are neatly dressed, just as all french women are neat,
even the poor and the aged. They may not always be clean but they are
always neat. From this standpoint the parti-coloured rags of even the
comparatively prosperous alsatian children were deplorable and the
french schoolmasters suffered. We did our best to help him out with
black children's aprons but these did not go far, beside we had to keep
them for the refugees.
We came to know Alsace and the alsatians very well, all kinds of them.
They were astonished at the simplicity with which the french army and
french soldiers took care of themselves. They had not been accustomed
to that in the german army. On the other hand the french soldiers were
rather mistrustful of the alsatians who were too anxious to be french
and yet were not french. They are not frank, the french soldiers said.
And it is quite true. The french whatever else they may be are frank.
They are very polite, they are very adroit but sooner or later they always
tell you the truth. The alsatians are not adroit, they are not polite and
they do not inevitably tell you the truth. Perhaps with renewed contact
with the french they will learn these things.
We distributed. We went into all the devastated villages. We usually
asked the priest to help us with the distribution. One priest who gave us
a great deal of good advice and with whom we became very friendly had
only one large room left in his house. Without any screens or partitions
he had made himself three rooms, the first third had his parlour furni-
ture, the second third his dining room furniture and the last third his
bedroom furniture. When we lunched with him and we lunched well
and his alsatian wines were very good, he received us in his parlour, he
then excused himself and withdrew into his bedroom to wash his hands,
THE WAR 157
and then he invited us very formally to come into the dining room, it
was like an old-fashioned stage setting.
We distributed, we drove around in the snow we talked to everybody
and everybody talked to us and by the end of May it was all over and
we decided to leave.
We went home by way of Metz, Verdun and Mildred Aldrich.
We once more returned to a changed Paris. We were restless. Ger-
trude Stein began to work very hard, it was at this time that she wrote
her Accents in Alsace and other political plays, the last plays in Geog-
raphy and Plays. We were still in the shadow of war work and we went
on doing some of it, visiting hospitals and seeing the soldiers left in them,
now pretty well neglected by everybody. We had spent a great deal of
our money during the war and we were economising, servants were
difficult to get if not impossible, prices were high. We settled down for
the moment with a femme de menage for only a few hours a day. I
used to say Gertrude Stein was the chauffeur and I was the cook. We
used to go over early in the morning to the public markets and get in
our provisions. It was a confused world.
Jessie Whitehead had come over with the peace commission as secre-
tary to one of the delegations and of course we were very interested in
knowing all about the peace. It was then that Gertrude Stein described
one of the young men of the peace commission who was holding forth,
as one who knew all about the war, he had been here ever since the
peace. Gertrude Stein's cousins came over, everybody came over, every-
body was dissatisfied and every one was restless. It was a restless and
disturbed world.
Gertrude Stein and Picasso quarrelled. They neither of them ever quite
knew about what. Anyway they did not see each other for a year and
then they met by accident at a party at Adrienne Monnier's. Picasso said,
how do you do to her and said something about her coming to see him.
No I will not, she answered gloomily. Picasso came to me and said, Ger-
trude says she won't come to see me, does she mean it. I am afraid if
she says it she means it. They did not see each other for another year
and in the meantime Picasso's little boy was born and Max Jacob was
complaining that he had not been named god-father. A very little while
after this we were somewhere at some picture gallery and Picasso came
up and put his hand on Gertrude Stein's shoulder and said, oh hell, let's
be friends. Sure, said Gertrude Stein and they embraced. When can I
158 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
come to see you, said Picasso, let's see, said Gertrude Stein, I am afraid
we are busy but come to dinner the end of the week. Nonsense, said
Picasso, we are coming to dinner to-morrow, and they came.
It was a changed Paris. Guillaume Apollinaire was dead. We saw a
tremendous number of people but none of them as far as I can remem-
ber that we had ever known before. Paris was crowded. As Clive Bell
remarked, they say that an awful lot of people were killed in the war
but it seems to me that an extraordinary large number of grown men
and women have suddenly been born.
As I say we were restless and we were economical and all day and all
evening we were seeing people and at last there was the defile, the pro-
cession under the Arc de Triomphe, of the allies.
The members of the American Fund for French Wounded were to
have seats on the benches that were put up the length of the Champs
Elysees but quite rightly the people of Paris objected as these seats would
make it impossible for them to see the parade and so Clemenceau
promptly had them taken down. Luckily for us Jessie Whitehead's room
in her hotel looked right over the Arc de Triomphe and she asked us to
come to it to see the parade. We accepted gladly. It was a wonderful day.
We got up at sunrise, as later it would have been impossible to cross
Paris in a car. This was one of the last trips Auntie made. By this time
the red cross was painted off it but it was still a truck. Very shortly after
it went its honourable way and was succeeded by Godiva, a two-seated
runabout, also a little ford. She was called Godiva because she had come
naked into the world and each of our friends gave us something with
which to bedeck her.
Auntie then was making practically her last trip. We left her near the
river and walked up to the hotel. Everybody was on the streets, men,
women children, soldiers, priests, nuns, we saw two nuns being helped
into a tree from which they would be able to see. And we ourselves were
admirably placed and we saw perfectly.
We saw it all, we saw first the few wounded from the Invalides in their
wheeling chairs wheeling themselves. It is an old french custom that a
military procession should always be preceded by the veterans from the
Invalides. They all marched past through the Arc de Triomphe. Ger-
trude Stein remembered that when as a child she used to swing on the
chains that were around the Arc de Triomphe her governess had told
her that no one must walk underneath since the german armies had
THE WAR 159
marched under it after 1870. And now everybody except the germans
were passing through.
All the nations marched differently, some slowly, some quickly, the
french carry their flags the best of all, Pershing and his officer carrying
the flag behind him were perhaps the most perfectly spaced. It was this
scene that Gertrude Stein described in the movie she wrote about this
time that I have published in Operas and Plays in the Plain Edition.
However it all finally came to an end. We wandered up and we wan-
dered down the Champs Elysees and the war was over and the piles o£
captured cannon that had made two pyramids were being taken away
and peace was upon us.
7 After the War-1919-1932
We were, in these days as I look back at them, constantly seeing people.
It is a confused memory those first years after the war and very diffi-
cult to think back and remember what happened before or after some-
thing else. Picasso once said, I have already told; when Gertrude Stein
and he were discussing dates, you forget that when we were young an
awful lot happened in a year. During the years just after the war as I
look in order to refresh my memory over the bibliography of Gertrude
Stein's work, I am astonished when I realise how many things happened
in a year. Perhaps we were not so young then but there were a great
many young in the world and perhaps that comes to the same thing.
The old crowd had disappeared. Matisse was now permanently in
Nice and in any case although Gertrude Stein and he were perfectly
good friends when they met, they practically never met. This was the
time when Gertrude Stein and Picasso were not seeing each other. They
always talked with the tenderest friendship about each other to any one
who had known them both but they did not see each other. Guillaume
Apollinaire was dead. Braque and his wife we saw from time to time,
he and Picasso by this time were fairly bitterly on the outs. I remember
one evening Man Ray brought a photograph that he had made of Picasso
to the house and Braque happened to be there. The photograph was
being passed around and when it came to Braque he looked at it and
said, I ought to know who that gentleman is, je dois connaitre ce mon-
sieur. It was a period this and a very considerable time afterward that
Gertrude Stein celebrated under the title, Of Having for a Long Time
Not Continued to be Friends.
Juan Gris was ill and discouraged. He had been very ill and was never
really well again. Privation and discouragement had had their effect.
Kahnweiler came back to Paris fairly early after the war but all his old
crowd with the exception of Juan were too successful to have need of
him. Mildred Aldrich had had her tremendous success with the Hilltop
160
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 161
on the Marne, in Mildred's way she had spent royally all she had earned
royally and was now still spending and enjoying it although getting a
little uneasy. We used to go out and see her about once a month, in fact
all the rest of her life we always managed to get out to see her regularly.
Even in the days of her very greatest glory she loved a visit from Ger-
trude Stein better than a visit from anybody else. In fact it was largely
to please Mildred that Gertrude Stein tried to get the Atlantic Monthly
to print something of hers. Mildred always felt and said that it would
be a blue ribbon if the Atlantic Monthly consented, which of course it
never did. Another thing used to annoy Mildred dreadfully. Gertrude
Stein's name was never in Who's Who in America. As a matter of fact
it was in english authors' bibliographies before it ever entered an ameri-
can one. This troubled Mildred very much. I hate to look at Who's Who
in America, she said to me, when I see all those insignificant people and
Gertrude's name not in. And then she would say, I know it's alright
but I wish Gertrude were not so outlawed. Poor Mildred. And now just
this year for reasons best known to themselves Who's Who has added
Gertrude Stein's name to their list. The Atlantic Monthly needless to say
has not.
The Atlantic Monthly story is rather funny.
As I said Gertrude Stein sent the Atlantic Monthly some manuscripts,
not with any hope of their accepting them, but if by any miracle they
should, she would be pleased and Mildred delighted. An answer came
back, a long and rather argumentative answer from the editorial office.
Gertrude Stein thinking that some Boston woman in the editorial office
had written, answered the arguments lengthily to Miss Ellen Sedgwick.
She received an almost immediate answer meeting all her arguments
and at the same time admitting that the matter was not without interest
but that of course Atlantic Monthly readers could not be affronted by
having these manuscripts presented in the review, but it might be pos-
sible to have them introduced by somebody in the part of the magazine,
if I remember rightly, called the Contributors' Club. The letter ended
by saying that the writer was not Ellen but Ellery Sedgwick.
Gertrude Stein of course was delighted with its being Ellery and not
Ellen and accepted being printed in the Contributors' Club, but equally
of course the manuscripts did not appear even in the part called Con-
tributors' Club.
We began to meet new people all the time.
162 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
Some one told us, I have forgotten who, that an american woman had
started a lending library of english books in our quarter. We had in those
days of economy given up Mudie's, but there was the American Library
which supplied us a little, but Gertrude Stein wanted more. We inves-
tigated and we found Sylvia Beach. Sylvia Beach was very enthusiastic
about Gertrude Stein and they became friends. She was Sylvia Beach's
first annual subscriber and Sylvia Beach was proportionately proud and
grateful. Her little place was in a little street near the Ecole de Medecine.
It was not then much frequented by americans. There was the author
of Beebie the Beebeist and there was the niece of Marcel Schwob and
there were a few stray irish poets. We saw a good deal of Sylvia those
days, she used to come to the house and also go out into the country with
us in the old car. We met Adrienne Monnier and she brought Valery
Larbaud to the house and they were all very interested in Three Lives
and Valery Larbaud, so we understood, meditated translating it. It was
at this time that Tristan Tzara first appeared in Paris. Adrienne Monnier
was much excited by his advent. Picabia had found him in Switzerland
during the war and they had together created dadaism, and out of
dadaism, with a great deal of struggle and quarrelling came surrealisme.
Tzara came to the house, I imagine Picabia brought him but I am
not quite certain. I have always found it very difficult to understand the
stories of his violence and his wickedness, at least I found it difficult
then because Tzara when he came to the house sat beside me at
the tea table and talked to me like a pleasant and not very exciting cousin.
Adrienne Monnier wanted Sylvia to move to the rue de 1'Odeon and
Sylvia hesitated but finally she did so and as a matter of fact we did
not see her very often afterward. They gave a party just after Sylvia
moved in and we went and there Gertrude Stein first discovered that
she had a young Oxford following. There were several young Oxford
men mere and they were awfully pleased to meet her and they asked
her to give them some manuscripts and they published them that year
nineten twenty, in the Oxford Magazine.
Sylvia Beach from time to time brought groups of people to the house,
groups of young writers and some older women with them. It was at
that time that Ezra Pound came, no that was brought about in another
way. She later ceased coming to the house but she sent word that Sher-
wood Anderson had come to Paris and wanted to see Gertrude Stein
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 163
and might he come. Gertrude Stein sent back word that she would be
very pleased and he came with his wife and Rosenfeld, the musical critic.
For some reason or other I was not present on this occasion, some
domestic complication in all probability, at any rate when I did come
home Gertrude Stein was moved and pleased as she has very rarely
been. Gertrude Stein was in those days a little bitter, all her unpublished
manuscripts, and no hope of publication or serious recognition. Sher-
wood Anderson came and quite simply and directly as is his way told
her what he thought of her work and what it had meant to him in his
development. He told it to her then and what was even rarer he told it
in print immediately after. Gertrude Stein and Sherwood Anderson have
always been the best of friends but I do not believe even he realises how
much his visit meant to her. It was he who thereupon wrote the intro-
duction to Geography and Plays.
In those days you met anybody anywhere. The Jewetts were an ameri-
can couple who owned a tenth century chateau near Perpignan. We
had met them there during the war and when they came to Paris we
went to see them. There we met first Man Ray and later Robert Coates,
how either of them happened to get there I do not know.
There were a lot of people in the room when we came in and soon
Gertrude Stein was talking to a little man who sat in the corner. As we
went out she made an engagement with him. She said he was a photog-
rapher and seemed interesting, and reminded me that Jeanne Cook,
William Cook's wife, wanted her picture taken to send to Cook's people
in America. We all three went to Man Ray's hotel. It was one of the
little, tiny hotels in the rue Delambre and Man Ray had one of the small
rooms, but I have never seen any space, not even a ship's cabin, with so
many things in it and the things so admirably disposed. He had a bed,
he had three large cameras, he had several kinds of lighting, he had a
window screen, and in a little closet he did all his developing. He showed
us pictures of Marcel Duchamp and a lot of other people and he asked
if he might come and take photographs of the studio and of Gertrude
Stein. He did and he also took some of me and we were very pleased
with the result. He has at intervals taken pictures of Gertrude Stein and
she is always fascinated with his way of using lights. She always comes
home very pleased. One day she told him that she liked his photographs
of her better than any that had ever been taken except one snap shot I
164 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
had taken of her recently. This seemed to bother Man Ray. In a little
while he asked her to come and pose and she did. He said, move all you
like, your eyes, your head, it is to be a pose but it is to have in it all the
qualities of a snap shot. The poses were very long, she, as he requested,
moved, and the result, the last photographs he made of her, are extraor-
dinarily interesting.
Robert Coates we also met at the Jewetts' in those early days just after
the war. I remember the day very well. It was a cold, dark day, on an
upper floor of a hotel. There were a number of young men there and
suddenly Gertrude Stein said she had forgotten to put the light on her
car and she did not want another fine, we had just had one because I
had blown the klaxon at a policeman trying to get him out of our way
and she had received one by going the wrong way around a post. Alright,
said a red-haired young man and immediately he was down and back.
The light is on, he announced. How did you know which my car was,
asked Gertrude Stein. Oh I knew, said Coates. We always liked Coates.
It is extraordinary in wandering about Paris how very few people you
know you meet, but we often met Coates hatless and read-headed in
the most unexpected places. This was just about the time of Broom,
about which I will tell very soon, and Gertrude Stein took a very deep
interest in Coates' work as soon as he showed it to her. She said he was
the one young man who had an individual rhythm, his words made a
sound to the eyes, most people's words do not. We also liked Coates'
address, the City Hotel, on the island, and we liked all his ways.
Gertrude Stein was delighted with the scheme of study that he pre-
pared for the Guggenheim prize. Unfortunately, the scheme of study,
which was a most charming little novel, with Gertrude Stein as a backer,
did not win a prize.
As I have said there was Broom.
Before the war we had known a young fellow, not known him much
but a little; Elmer Harden, who was in Paris studying music. During
the war we heard that Elmer Harden had joined the french army and
had been badly wounded. It was rather an amazing story. Elmer Harden
had been nursing french wounded in the american hospital and one of
his patients, a captain with an arm fairly disabled, was going back to the
front. Elmer Harden could not content himself any longer nursing. He
said to Captain Peter, I am going with you. But it is impossible, said
Captain Peter. But I am, said Elmer stubbornly. So they took a taxi and
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 165
they went to the war office and to a dentist and I don't know where else,
but by the end of the week Captain Peter had rejoined and Elmer
Harden was in his regiment as a soldier. He fought well and was
wounded. After the war we met him again and then we met often. He
and the lovely flowers he used to send us were a great comfort in those
days just after the peace. He and I always say that he and I will be the
last people of our generation to remember the war. I am afraid we both
of us have already forgotten it a little. Only the other day though Elmer
announced that he had had a great triumph, he had made Captain Peter
and Captain Peter is a breton admit that it was a nice war. Up to this
time when he had said to Captain Peter, it was a nice war, Captain Peter
had not answered, but this time when Elmer said, it was a nice war, Cap-
tain Peter said, yes Elmer, it was a nice war.
Kate Buss came from the same town as Elmer, from Medford, Mass.
She was in Paris and she came to see us. I do not think Elmer intro-
duced her but she did come to see us. She was much interested in the
writings of Gertrude Stein and owned everything that up to that time
could be bought. She brought Kreymborg to see us. Kreymborg had
come to Paris with Harold Loeb to start Broom. Kreymborg and his
wife came to the house frequently. He wanted very much to run The
Long Gay Book, the thing Gertrude Stein had written just after The
Making of Americans, as a serial. Of course Harold Loeb would not
consent to that. Kreymborg used to read out the sentences from this
book with great gusto. He and Gertrude Stein had a bond of union be-
side their mutual liking because the Grafton Press that had printed
Three Lives had printed his first book and about the same time.
Kate Buss brought lots of people to the house. She brought Djuna
Barnes and Mina Loy and they had wanted to bring James Joyce but
they didn't. We were glad to see Mina whom we had known in Florence
as Mina Haweis. Mina brought Glenway Wescott on his first trip to
Europe. Glenway impressed us greatly by his english accent. Heming-
way explained. He said, when you matriculate at the University of
Chicago you write down just what accent you will have and they give
it to you when you graduate. You can have a sixteenth century or
modern, whatever you like. Glenway left behind him a silk cigarette
case with his initials, we kept it until he came back again and then gave
it to him.
Mina also brought Robert McAlmon. McAlmon was very nice in
166 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
those days, very mature and very good-looking. It was much later that
he published The Making of Americans in the Contact press and that
everybody quarrelled. But that is Paris, except that as a matter of fact
Gertrude Stein and he never became friends again.
Kate Buss brought Ernest Walsh, he was very young then and very
feverish and she was very worried about him. We met him later with
Hemingway and then in Belley, but we never knew him very well.
We met Ezra Pound at Grace Lounsbery's house, he came home to
dinner with us and he stayed and he talked about Japanese prints among
other things. Gertrude Stein liked him but did not find him amusing.
She said he was a village explainer, excellent if you were a village, but if
you were not, not. Ezra also talked about T. S. Eliot. It was the first
time any one had talked about T.S. at the house. Pretty soon everybody
talked about T.S. Kitty Buss talked about him and much later Heming-
way talked about him as the Major. Considerably later Lady Rother-
mere talked about him and invited Gertrude Stein to come and meet
him. They were founding the Criterion. We had met Lady Rothermere
through Muriel Draper whom we had seen again for the first time after
many years. Gertrude Stein was not particularly anxious to go to Lady
Rothermere's and meet T. S. Eliot, but we all insisted she should, and
she gave a doubtful yes. I had no evening dress to wear for this occasion
and started to make one. The bell rang and in walked Lady Rothermere
and T.S.
Eliot and Gertrude Stein had a solemn conversation, mostly about
split infinitives and other grammatical solecisms and why Gertrude
Stein used them. Finally Lady Rothermere and Eliot rose to go and
Eliot said that if he printed anything of Gertrude Stein's in the Criterion
it would have to be her very latest thing. They left and Gertrude Stein
said, don't bother to finish your dress, now we don't have to go, and she
began to write a portrait of T. S. Eliot and called it the fifteenth of No-
vember, that being this day and so there could be no doubt but that it
was her latest thing. It was all about wool is wool and silk is silk or
wool is woollen and silk is silken. She sent it to T. S. Eliot and he ac-
cepted it but naturally he did not print it.
Then began a long correspondence, not between Gertrude Stein and
T. E. Eliot, but between T. S. Eliot's secretary and myself. We each ad-
dressed the other as Sir, I signing myself A. B. Toklas and she signing
initials. It was only considerably afterwards that I found out that his
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 167
secretary was not a young man. I don't know whether she ever found
out that I was not.
In spite of all this correspondence nothing happened and Gertrude
Stein mischievously told the story to all the english people coming to
the house and at that moment there were a great many english coming
in and out. At any rate finally there was a note, it was now early spring,
from the Criterion asking would Miss Stein mind if her contribution
appeared in the October number. She replied that nothing could be
more suitable than the fifteenth of November on the fifteenth of October.
Once more a long silence and then this time came proof of the article.
We were surprised but returned the proof promptly. Apparently a young
man had sent it without authority because very shortly came an apolo-
getic letter saying that there had been a mistake, the article was not to be
printed just yet. This was also told to the passing english with the result
that after all it was printed. Thereafter it was reprinted in the Georgian
Stories. Gertrude Stein was delighted when later she was told that Eliot
had said in Cambridge that the work of Gertrude Stein was very fine
but not for us.
But to come back to Ezra. Ezra did come back and he came back with
the editor of The Dial. This time it was worse than Japanese prints, it
was much more violent. In his surprise at the violence Ezra fell out of
Gertrude Stein's favourite little armchair, the one I have since tapestried
with Picasso designs, and Gertrude Stein was furious. Finally Ezra and
the editor of The Dial left, nobody too well pleased. Gertrude Stein did
not want to see Ezra again. Ezra did not quite see why. He met Ger-
trude Stein one day near the Luxembourg gardens and said, but I do
want to come to see you. I am so sorry, answered Gertrude Stein, but Miss
Toklas has a bad tooth and beside we are busy picking wild flowers.
All of which was literally true, like all of Gertrude Stein's literature, but
it upset Ezra, and we never saw him again.
During these months after the war we were one day going down a
little street and saw a man looking in at a window and going backwards
and forwards and right and left and otherwise behaving strangely. Lip-
schitz, said Gertrude Stein. Yes, said Lipschitz, I am buying an iron
cock. Where is it, we asked. Why in there, he said, and in there it was.
Gertrude Stein had known Lipschitz very slightly at one time but this
incident made them friends and soon he asked her to pose. He had
just finished a bust of Jean Cocteau and he wanted to do her. She never
168 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
minds posing, she likes the calm of it and although she does not like
sculpture and told Lipschitz so, she began to pose. I remember it was a
very hot spring and Lipschitz's studio was appallingly hot and they
spent hours there.
Lipschitz is an excellent gossip and Gertrude Stein adores the begin-
ning and middle and end of a story and Lipschitz was able to supply
several missing parts of several stories.
And then they talked about art and Gertrude Stein rather liked her
portrait and they were very good friends and the sittings were over.
One day we were across town at a picture show and somebody came
up to Gertrude Stein and said something. She said, wiping her forehead,
it is hot. He said he was a friend of Lipschitz and she answered, yes it
was hot there. Lipschitz was to bring her some photographs of the head
he had done but he did not and we were awfully busy and Gertrude
Stein sometimes wondered why Lipschitz did not come. Somebody
wanted the photos so she wrote to him to bring them. He came. She said
why did you not come before. He said he did not come before because
he had been told by some one to whom she had said it, that she was
bored sitting for him. Oh hell, she said, listen I am fairly well known
for saying things about any one and anything, I say them about people,
I say them to people, I say them when I please and how I please but as
I mostly say what I think, the least that you or anybody else can do is
to rest content with what I say to you. He seemed very content and they
talked happily and pleasantly and they said a bientot, we will meet soon.
Lipschitz left and we did not see him for several years.
Then Jane Heap turned up and wanted to take some of Lipschitz's
things to America and she wanted Gertrude Stein to come and choose
them. But how can I, said Gertrude Stein, when Lipschitz is very evi-
dently angry, I am sure I have not the slightest idea why or how but he
is. Jane Heap said that Lipschitz said that he was fonder of Gertrude
Stein than he was of almost anybody and was heart broken at not seeing
her. Oh, said Gertrude Stein, I am very fond of him. Sure I will go with
you. She went, they embraced tenderly and had a happy time and her
only revenge was in parting to say to Lipschitz, a tres bientot. And Lip-
schitz said, comme vous etes mechante. They have been excellent friends
ever since and Gertrude Stein has done of Lipschitz one of her most
lovely portraits but they have never spoken of the quarrel and if he
knows what happened the second time she does not.
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 169
It was through Lipschitz that Gertrude Stein again met Jean Cocteau.
Lipschitz had told Gertrude Stein a thing which she did not know, that
Cocteau in his Potomak had spoken of and quoted The Portrait of
Mabel Dodge. She was naturally very pleased as Cocteau was the first
french writer to speak of her work. They met once or twice and began a
friendship that consists in their writing to each other quite often and
liking each other immensely and having many young and old friends
in common, but not in meeting.
Jo Davidson too sculptured Gertrude Stein at this time. There, all was
peaceful, Jo was witty and amusing and he pleased Gertrude Stein. I
cannot remember who came in and out, whether they were real or
whether they were sculptured but there were a great many. There were'
among others Lincoln Steflfens and in some queer way he is associated
with the beginning of our seeing a good deal of Janet Scudder but I
do not well remember just what happened.
I do however remember very well the first time I ever heard Janet
Scudder 's voice. It was way back when I first came to Paris and my
friend and I had a little apartment in the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs.
My friend in the enthusiasm of seeing other people enthusiastic had
bought a Matisse and it had just been hung on the wall. Mildred Aldrich
was calling on us, it was a warm spring afternoon and Mildred was lean-
ing out of the window. I suddenly heard her say, Janet, Janet come up
here. What is it, said a very lovely drawling voice. I want you to come
up here and meet my friends Harriet and Alice and I want you to come
up and see their new apartment. Oh, said the voice. And then Mildred
said, and they have a new big Matisse. Come up and see it. I don't think
so, said the voice.
Janet did later see a great deal of Matisse when he lived out in Clamart.
And Gertrude Stein and she had always been friends, at least ever since
the period when they first began to see a good deal of each other.
Like Doctor Claribel Cone, Janet, always insisting that she under-
stands none of it, reads and feels Gertrude Stein's work and reads it
aloud understandingly.
We were going to the valley of the Rhone for the first time since the
war and Janet and a friend in a duplicate Godiva were to come too. I
will tell about this very soon.
During all these restless months we were also trying to get Mildred
Aldrich the legion of honour. After the war was over a great many war-
170 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
workers were given the legion of honour but they were all members
of organisations and Mildred Aldrich was not. Gertrude Stein was very
anxious that Mildred Aldrich should have it. In the first place she
thought she ought, no one else had done as much propaganda for France
as she had by her books which everybody in America read, and beside
she knew Mildred would like it. So we began the campaign. It was not
a very easy thing to accomplish as naturally the organizations had the
most influence. We started different people going. We began to get lists
of prominent americans and asked them to sign. They did not refuse,
but a list in itself helps, but does not accomplish results. Mr. Jaccacci who
had a great admiration for Miss Aldrich was very helpful but all the
people that he knew wanted things for themselves first. We got the
American Legion interested at least two of the colonels, but they also
had other names that had to pass first. We had seen and talked to and
interested everybody and everybody promised and nothing happened.
Finally we met a senator. He would be helpful but then senators were
busy and then one afternoon we met the senator's secretary. Gertrude
Stein drove the senator's secretary home in Godiva.
As it turned out the senator's secretary had tried to learn to drive a car
and had not succeeded. The way in which Gertrude Stein made her
way through Paris traffic with the ease and indifference of a chauffeur,
and was at the same time a well known author impressed her im-
mensely. She said she would get Mildred Aldrich's papers out of the
pigeon hole in which they were probably reposing and she did. Very
shortly after the mayor of Mildred's village called upon her one morning
on official business. He presented her with the preliminary papers to
be signed for the legion of honour. He said to her, you must remember,
Mademoiselle, these matters often start but do not get themselves accom-
plished. So you must be prepared for disappointment. Mildred answered
quietly, monsieur le maire, if my friends have started a matter of this
kind they will see to it that it is accomplished. And it was. When we ar-
rived at Avignon on our way to Saint-Remy there was a telegram telling
us that Mildred had her decoration. We were delighted and Mildred
Aldrich to the day of her death never lost her pride and pleasure in her
honour.
During these early restless years after the war Gertrude Stein worked
a great deal. Not as in the old days, night after night, but anywhere, in
between visits, in the automobile while she was waiting in the street
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 171
while I did errands, while posing. She was particularly fond in these
days of working in the automobile while it stood in the crowded streets.
It was then that she wrote Finer Than Melanctha as a joke. Harold
Loeb, at that time editing Broom all by himself, said he would like to
have something of hers that would be as fine as Melanctha, her early
negro story in Three Lives.
She was much influenced by the sound of the streets and the move-
ment of the automobiles. She also liked then to set a sentence for herself
as a sort of tuning fork and metronome and then write to that time and
tune. Mildred's Thoughts, published in The American Caravan, was
one of these experiments she thought most successful. The Birthplace
of Bonnes, published in The Little Review, was another one. Moral
Tales of 1920—1921, American Biography, and One Hundred Prominent
Men, when as she said she created out of her imagination one hundred
men equally men and all equally prominent were written then. These
two were later printed in Useful Knowledge.
It was also about this time that Harry Gibb came back to Paris for a
short while. He was very anxious that Gertrude Stein should publish a
book of her work showing what she had been doing in those years. Not
a little book, he kept saying, a big book, something they can get their
teeth into. You must do it, he used to say. But no publisher will look at
it now that John Lane is no longer active, she said. It makes no differ-
ence, said Harry Gibb violently, it is the essence of the thing that they
must see and you must have a lot of things printed, and then turning to
me he said, Alice you do it. I knew he was right and that it had to be
done. But how.
I talked to Kate Buss about it and she suggested the Four Seas Com-
pany who had done a little book for her. I began a correspondence with
Mr. Brown, Honest to God Brown as Gertrude Stein called him in imi-
tation of William Cook's phrase when everything was going particularly
wrong. The arrangements with Honest to God having finally been made
we left for the south in July, nineteen twenty-two.
We started off in Godiva, the runabout ford and followed by Janet
Scudder in a second Godiva accompanied by Mrs. Lane. They were
going to Grasse to buy themselves a home, they finally bought one near
Aix-en-Provence. And we were going to Saint-Remy to visit in peace the
country we had loved during the war.
We were only a hundred or so kilometers from Paris when Janet
172 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
Scudder tooted xher horn which was the signal agreed upon for us to
stop and wait. Janet came alongside. I think, said she solemnly, Gertrude
Stein always called her The Doughboy, she always said there were only
two perfectly solemn things on earth, the doughboy and Janet Scudder.
Janet had also, Gertrude Stein always said, all the subtlety of the dough-
boy and all his nice ways and all his lonesomeness. Janet came alongside,
I think, she said solemnly, we are not on the right road, it says Paris-
Perpignan and I want to go to Grasse.
Anyway at the time we got no further than Lome and there we sud-
denly realised how tired we were. We were just tired.
We suggested that the others should move on to Grasse but they said
they too would wait and we all waited. It was the first time we had
just stayed still since Palma de Mallorca, since 1916. Finally we moved
slowly on to Saint-Remy and they went further to Grasse and then came
back. They asked us what we were going to do and we answered, noth-
ing just stay here. So they went off again and bought a property in Aix-
en-Provence.
Janet Scudder, as Gertrude Stein always said, had the real pioneer's
passion for buying useless real estate. In every little town we stopped
on the way Janet would find a piece of property that she considered pur-
chasable and Gertrude Stein, violently protesting, got her away. She
wanted to buy property everywhere except in Grasse where she had gone
to buy property. She finally did buy a house and grounds in Aix-en-
Provence after insisting on Gertrude Stein's seeing it who told her not
to and telegraphed no and telephoned no. However Janet did buy it but
luckily after a year she was able to get rid of it. During that year we
stayed quietly in Saint-Remy.
We had intended staying only a month or two but we stayed all win-
ter. With the exception of an occasional interchange of visits with Janet
Scudder we saw no one except the people of the country. We went to
Avignon to shop, we went now and then into the country we had known
so well but for the most part we wandered around Saint-Remy, we went
up into the Alpilles, the little hills that Gertrude Stein described over
and over again in the writing of that winter, we watched the enormous
flocks of sheep going up into the mountains led by the donkeys and their
water bottles, we sat above the roman monuments and we went often to
Les Baux. The hotel was not very comfortable but we stayed on. The
valley of the Rhone was once more exercising its spell over us.
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 173
It was during this winter that Gertrude Stein meditated upon the use
of grammar, poetical forms and what might be termed landscape plays.
It was at this time that she wrote Elucidation, printed in transition in
nineteen twenty-seven. It was her first effort to state her problems of ex-
pression and her attempts to answer them. It was her first effort to realise
clearly just what her writing meant and why it was at it was. Later on
much later she wrote her treatises on grammar, sentences, paragraphs,
vocabulary etcetera, which I have printed in Plain Edition under the
title of How To Write.
It was in Saint-Remy and during this winter that she wrote the poetry
that has so greatly influenced the younger generation. Her Capital
Capitals, Virgil Thomson has put to music. Lend a Hand or Four Re-
ligions has been printed in Useful Knowledge. This play has always
interested her immensely, it was the first attempt that later made her
Operas and Plays, the first conception of landscape as a play. She also
at that time wrote the Valentine to Sherwood Anderson, also printed in
the volume Useful Knowledge, Indian Boy, printed later in the Re-
viewer, (Carl Van Vechten sent Hunter Stagg to us a young Southerner
as attractive as his name), and Saints In Seven, which she used to illus-
trate her work in her lectures at Oxford and Cambridge, and Talks to
Saints in Saint-Remy.
She worked in those days with slow care and concentration, and was
very preoccupied.
Finally we received the first copies of Geography and Plays, the win-
ter was over and we went back to Paris.
This long winter in Saint-Remy broke the restlessness of the war and
the after war. A great many things were to happen, there were to be
friendships and there were to be enmities and there were to be a great
many other things but there was not to be any restlessness.
Gertrude Stein always says that she only has two real distractions,
pictures and automobiles. Perhaps she might now add dogs.
Immediately after the war her attention was attracted by the work
of a young french painter, Fabre, who had a natural feeling for objects
on a table and landscapes but he came to nothing. The next painter who
attracted her attention was Andre Masson. Masson was at that time in-
fluenced by Juan Gris in whom Gertrude Stein's interest was permanent
and vital. She was interested in Andre Masson as a painter particularly
as a painter of white and she was interested in his composition in the
174 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
wandering line in his compositions. Soon Masson fell under the influ-
ence of the surrealistes.
The surrealistes are the vulgarisation of Picabia as Delaunay and his
followers and the futurists were the vulgarisation of Picasso. Picabia had
conceived and is struggling with the problem that a line should have
the vibration of a musical sound and that this vibration should be the
result of conceiving the human form and the human face in so tenuous
a fashion that it would induce such vibration in the line forming it. It
is his way of achieving the disembodied. It was this idea that conceived
mathematically influenced Marcel Duchamp and produced his The
Nude Descending the Staircase.
All his life Picabia has struggled to dominate and achieve this con-
ception. Gertrude Stein thinks that perhaps he is now approaching the
solution of his problem. The surrealistes taking the manner for the
matter as is the way of the vulgarisers, accept the line as having become
vibrant and as therefore able in itself to inspire them to higher flights.
He who is going to be the creator of the vibrant line knows that it is not
yet created and if it were it would not exist by itself, it would be de-
pendent upon the emotion of the object which compels the vibration.
So much for the creator and his followers.
Gertrude Stein, in her work, has always been possessed by the intel-
lectual passion for exactitude in the description of inner and outer
reality. She has produced a simplification by this concentration, and as
a result the destruction of associational emotion in poetry and prose. She
knows that beauty, music, decoration, the result of emotion should never
be the cause, even events should not be the cause of emotion nor should
they be the material of poetry and prose. Nor should emotion itself be
the cause of poetry or prose. They should consist of an exact reproduc-
tion of either an outer or an inner reality.
It was this conception of exactitude that made the close understand-
ing between Gertrude Stein and Juan Gris.
Juan Gris also conceived exactitude but in him exactitude had a mys-
tical basis. As a mystic it was necessary for him to be exact. In Gertrude
Stein the necessity was intellectual, a pure passion for exactitude. It is be-
cause of this that her work has often been compared to that of mathe-
maticians and by a certain french critic to the work of Bach.
Picasso by nature the most endowed had less clarity of intellectual
purpose. He was in his creative activity dominated by Spanish ritual,
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 175
later by negro ritual expressed in negro sculpture (which has an arab
basis the basis also of Spanish ritual) and later by russian ritual. His
creative activity being tremendously dominant, he made these great
rituals over into his own image.
Juan Gris was the only person whom Picasso wished away. The rela-
tion between them was just that.
In the days when the friendship between Gertrude Stein and Picasso
had become if possible closer than before, (it was for his little boy, born
February fourth to her February third, that she wrote her birthday book
with a line for each day in the year) in those days her intimacy with
Juan Gris displeased him. Once after a show of Juan's pictures at the
Gallerie Simon he said to her with violence, tell me why you stand up
for his work, you know you do not like it; and she did not answer him.
Later when Juan died and Gertrude Stein was heart broken Picasso
came to the house and spent all day there. I do not know what was said
but I do know that at one time Gertrude Stein said to him bitterly, you
have no right to mourn, and he said, you have no right to say that to
me. You never realised his meaning because you did not have it, she said
angrily. You know very well I did, he replied.
The most moving thing Gertrude Stein has ever written is The Life
and Death of Juan Gris. It was printed in transition and later on trans-
lated in german for his retrospective show in Berlin.
Picasso never wished Braque away. Picasso said once when he and
Gertrude Stein were talking together, yes, Braque and James Joyce, they
are the incomprehensibles whom anybody can understand. Les incom-
prehensibles que tout le monde peut comprendre.
The first thing that happened when we were back in Paris was Hem-
ingway with a letter of introduction from Sherwood Anderson.
I remember very well the impression I had of Hemingway that first
afternoon. He was an extraordinarily good-looking young man, twenty-
three years old. It was not long after that that everybody was twenty-
six. It became the period of being twenty-six. During the next two or
three years all the young men were twenty-six years old. It was the right
age apparently for that time and place. There were one or two under
twenty, for example George Lynes but they did not count as Gertrude
Stein carefully explained to them. If they were young men they were
twenty-six. Later on, much later on they were twenty-one and twenty-
two.
176 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
So Hemingway was twenty-three, rather foreign looking, with pas-
sionately interested, rather than interesting eyes. He sat in front of Ger-
trude Stein and listened and looked.
They talked then, and more and more, a great deal together. He asked
her to come and spend an evening in their apartment and look at his
work. Hemingway had then and has always a very good instinct for
finding apartments in strange but pleasing localities and good femmes
de menage and good food. This his first apartment was just off the place
du Tertre. We spent the evening there and he and Gertrude Stein went
over all the writing he had done up to that time. He had begun the novel
that it was inevitable he would begin and there were the little poems
afterwards printed by McAlmon in the Contract Edition. Gertrude
Stein rather liked the poems, they were direct, Kiplingesque, but the
novel she found wanting. There is a great deal of description in this, she
said, and not particularly good description. Begin over again and con-
centrate, she said.
Hemingway was at this time Paris correspondent for a Canadian news-
paper. He was obliged there to express what he called the Canadian view-
point.
He and Gertrude Stein used to walk together and talk together a
great deal. One day she said to him, look here, you say you and your
wife have a little money between you. Is it enough to live on if you live
quietly. Yes, he said. Well, she said, then do it. If you keep on doing
newspaper work you will never see things, you will only see words and
that will not do, that is of course if you intend to be a writer. Heming-
way said he undoubtedly intended to be a writer. He and his wife went
away on a trip and shortly after Hemingway turned up alone. He came
to the house about ten o'clock in the morning and he stayed, he stayed for
lunch, he stayed all afternoon, he stayed for dinner and he stayed until
about ten o'clock at night and then all of a sudden he announced that
his wife was enceinte and then with great bitterness, and I, I am too
young to be a father. We consoled him as best we could and sent him on
his way.
When they came back Hemingway said that he had made up his
mind. They would go back to America and he would work hard for a
year and with what he would earn and what they had they would settle
down and he would give up newspaper work and make himself a writer.
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 177
They went away and well within the prescribed year they came back
with a new born baby. Newspaper work was over.
The first thing to do when they came back was as they thought to get
the baby baptised. They wanted Gertrude Stein and myself to be god-
mothers and an english war comrade of Hemingway was to be god-
father. We were all born of different religions and most of us were
not practising any, so it was rather difficult to know in what church the
baby could be baptised. We spent a great deal of time that winter, all of
of us, discussing the matter. Finally it was decided that it should be
baptised episcopalian and episcopalian it was. Just how it was managed
with the assortment of god-parents I am sure I do not know, but it was
baptised in the episcopalian chapel.
Writer or painter god-parents are notoriously unreliable. That is,
there is certain before long to be a cooling of friendship. \ know several
cases of this, poor Paulot Picasso's god-parents have wandered out of
sight and just as naturally it is a long time since any of us have seen or
heard of our Hemingway god-child.
However in the beginning we were active god-parents, I particularly.
I embroidered a little chair and I knitted a gay coloured garment for the
god-child. In the meantime the god-child's father was very earnestly at
work making himself a writer.
Gertrude Stein never corrects any detail of anybody's writing, she
sticks strictly to general principles, the way of seeing what the writer
chooses to see, and the relation between that vision and the way it gets
down. When the vision is not complete the words are flat, it is very
simple, there can be no mistake about it, so she insists. It was at this time
that Hemingway began the short things that afterwards were printed
in a volume called In Our Time.
One day Hemingway came in very excited about Ford Madox Ford
and the Transatlantic. Ford Madox Ford had started the Transatlantic
some months before. A good many years before, indeed before the war,
we had met Ford Madox Ford who was at that time Ford Madox
Hueffer. He was married to Violet Hunt and Violet Hunt and Gertrude
Stein were next to each other at the tea table and talked a great deal
together. I was next to Ford Madox HuefTer and I liked him very much
and I liked his stories of Mistral and Tarascon and I liked his having
been followed about in that land of the french royalist, on account of
178 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
his resemblance to the Bourbon claimant. I had never seen the Bourbon
claimant but Ford at that time undoubtedly might have been a Bourbon.
We had heard that Ford was in Paris, but we had not happened to
meet. Gertrude Stein had however seen copies of the Transatlantic and
found it interesting but had thought nothing further about it.
Hemingway came in then very excited and said that Ford wanted
something of Gertrude Stein's for the next number and he, Hemingway,
wanted The Making of Americans to be run in it as a serial and he had
to have the first fifty pages at once. Gertrude Stein was of course quite
overcome with her excitement at this idea, but there was no copy of the
manuscript except the one that we had had bound. That makes no dif-
ference, said Hemingway, I will copy it. And he and I between us did
copy it and it was printed in the next number of the Transatlantic. So
for the first time a piece of the monumental work which was the begin-
ning, really the beginning of modern writing, was printed, and we were
very happy. Later on when things were difficult between Gertrude Stein
and Hemingway, she always remembered with gratitude that after all
it was Hemingway who first caused to be printed a piece of The Mak-
ing of Americans. She always says, yes sure I have a weakness for
Hemingway. After all he was the first of the young men to knock at
my door and he did make Ford print the first piece of The Making of
Americans.
I myself have not so much confidence that Hemingway did do this.
I have never known what the story is but I have always been certain
that there was some other story behind it all. That is the way I feel
about it.
Gertrude Stein and Sherwood Anderson are very funny on the sub-
ject of Hemingway. The last time that Sherwood was in Paris they often
talked about him. Hemingway had been formed by the two of them and
they were both a little proud and a little ashamed of the work of their
minds. Hemingway had at one moment, when he had repudiated
Sherwood Anderson and all his works, written him a letter in the name
of american literature which he, Hemingway, in company with his con-
temporaries was about to save, telling Sherwood just what he, Heming-
way thought about Sherwood's work, and, that thinking, was in no sense
complimentary. When Sherwood came to Paris Hemingway naturally
was afraid. Sherwood as naturally was not.
As I say he and Gertrude Stein were endlessly amusing on the sub-
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 179
ject. They admitted that Hemingway was yellow, he is, Gertrude Stein
insisted, just like the flat-boat men on the Mississippi river as described
by Mark Twain. But what a book, they both agreed, would be the real
story of Hemingway, not those he writes but the confessions of the real
Ernest Hemingway. It would be for another audience than the audience
Hemingway now has but it would be very wonderful. And then they
both agreed that they have a weakness for Hemingway because he is
such a good pupil. He is a rotten pupil, I protested. You don't under-
stand, they both said, it is so flattering to have a pupil who does it with-
out understanding it, in other words he takes training and anybody who
takes training is a favourite pupil. They both admit it to be a weakness.
Gertrude Stein added further, you see he is like Derain. You remember
Monsieur de Tuille said, when I did not understand why Derain was
having the success he was having that it was because he looks like a
modern and he smells of the museums. And that is Hemingway, he
looks like a modern and he smells of the museums. But what a story
that of the real Hem, and one he should tell himself but alas he never
will. After all, as he himself once murmured, there is the career, the
career.
But to come back to the events that were happening.
Hemingway did it all. He copied the manuscript and corrected the
proof. Correcting proofs is, as I said before, like dusting, you learn the
values of the thing as no reading suffices to teach it to you. In correcting
these proofs Hemingway learned a great deal and he admired all that
he learned. It was at this time that he wrote to Gertrude Stein saying
that it was she who had done the work in writing The Making of Amer-
icans and he and all his had but to devote their lives to seeing that it was
published.
He had hopes of being able to accomplish this. Some one, I think by
the name of Sterne, said that he could place it with a publisher. Ger-
trude Stein and Hemingway believed that he could, but soon Heming-
way reported that Sterne had entered into his period of unreliability.
That was the end of that.
In the meantime and sometime before this Mina Loy had brought Mc-
Almon to the house and he came from time to time and he brought his
wife and brought William Carlos Williams. And finally he wanted to
print The Making of Americans in the Contact Edition and finally he
did. I will come to that.
180 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
In the meantime McAlmon had printed the three poems and ten
stories of Hemingway and William Bird had printed In Our Time and
Hemingway was getting to be known. He was coming to know Dos
Passos and Fitzgerald and Bromfield and George Antheil and every-
body else and Harold Loeb was once more in Paris. Hemingway had
become a writer. He was also a shadow-boxer, thanks to Sherwood, and
he heard about bull-fighting from me. I have always loved Spanish danc-
ing and Spanish bull-fighting and I loved to show the photographs of
bull-fighters and bull-fighting. I also loved to show the photograph
where Gertrude Stein and I were in the front row and had our picture
taken there accidentally. In these days Hemingway was teaching some
young chap how to box. The boy did not know how, but by accident he
knocked Hemingway out. I believe this sometimes happens. At any rate
in these days Hemingway althought a sportsman was easily tired. He
used to get quite worn out walking from his house to ours. But then he
had been worn by the war. Even now he is, as Helene says all men
are, fragile. Recently a robust friend of his said to Gertrude Stein, Ernest
is very fragile, whenever he does anything sporting something breaks,
his arm, his leg, or his head.
Jn those early days Hemingway liked all his contemporaries except
Cummings. He accused Cummings of having copied everything, not
from anybody but from somebody. Gertrude Stein who had been much
impressed by The Enormous Room said that Cummings did not copy,
he was the natural heir of the New England tradition with its aridity
and its sterility, but also with its individuality. They disagreed about
this. They also disagreed about Sherwood Anderson. Gertrude Stein
contended that Sherwood Anderson had a genius for using a sentence
to convey a direct emotion, this was in the great american tradition,
and that really except Sherwood there was no one in America who
could write a clear and passionate sentence. Hemingway did not believe
this, he did not like Sherwood's taste. Taste has nothing to do with sen-
tences, contended Gertrude Stein. She also added that Fitzgerald was
the only one of the younger writers who wrote naturally in sentences.
Gertrude Stein and Fitzgerald are very peculiar in their relation to
each other. Gertrude Stein had been very much impressed by This Side
of Paradise. She read it when it came out and before she knew any of
the young american writers. She said of it that it was this book that
really created for the public the new generation. She has never changed
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 181
her opinion about this. She thinks this equally true of The Great Gatsby.
She thinks Fitzgerald will be read when many of his well known con-
temporaries are forgotten. Fitzgerald always says that he thinks Ger-
trude Stein says these things just to annoy him by making him think
that she means them, and he adds in his favourite way, and her doing
it is the cruellest thing I ever heard. They always however have a very
good time when they meet. And the last time they met they had a good
time with themselves and Hemingway.
Then there was McAlmon. McAlmon had one quality that appealed
to Gertrude Stein, abundance, he could go on writing, but she com-
plained that it was dull.
There was also Glenway Wescott but Glenway Wescott at no time
interested Gertrude Stein. He has a certain syrup but it does not pour.
So then Hemingway's career was begun. For a little while we saw
less of him and then he began to come again. He used to recount to Ger-
trude Stein the conversations that he afterwards used in The Sun Also
Rises and they talked endlessly about the character of Harold Loeb. At
this time Hemingway was preparing his volume of short stories to sub-
mit to publishers in America. One evening after we had not seen him
for a while he turned up with Shipman. Shipman was an amusing boy
who was to inherit a few thousand dollars when he came of age. He
was not of age. He was to buy the Transatlantic Review when he came
of age, so Hemingway said. He was to support a surrealist review when
he came of age, Andre Masson said. He was to buy a house in the coun-
try when he came of age, Josette Gris said. As a matter of fact when he
came of age nobody who had known him then seemed to know what he
did do with his inheritance. Hemingway brought him with him to the
house to talk about buying the Transatlantic and incidentally he brought
the manuscript he intended sending to America. He handed it to Ger-
trude Stein. He had added to his stories a little story of meditations and
in these he said that The Enormous Room was the greatest book he
had ever read. It was then that Gertrude Stein said, Hemingway, re-
marks are not literature.
After this we did not see Hemingway for quite a while and then we
went to see some one, just after The Making of Americans was printed,
and Hemingway who was there came up to Gertrude Stein and began
to explain why he would not be able to write a review of the book. Just
then a heavy hand fell on his shoulder and Ford Madox Ford said,
182 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
young man it 'is I who wish to speak to Gertrude Stein. Ford then said
to her, I wish to ask your permission to dedicate my new book to you.
May I. Gertrude Stein and I were both awfully pleased and touched.
For some years after this Gertrude Stein and Hemingway did not
meet. And then we heard that he was back in Paris and telling a num-
ber of people how much he wanted to see her. Don't you come home
with Hemingway on your arm, I used to say when she went out for a
walk. Sure enough one day she did come back bringing him with her.
They sat and talked a long time. Finally I heard her say, Hemingway,
after all you are ninety percent Rotarian. Can't you, he said, make it
eighty percent. No, said she regretfully, I can't. After all, as she always
says, he did, and I may say, he does have moments of disinterestedness.
After that they met quite often. Gertrude Stein always says she likes
to see him, he is so wonderful. And if he could only tell his own story.
In their last conversation she accused him of having killed a great many
of his rivals and put them under the sod. I never, said Hemingway,
seriously killed anybody but one man and he was a bad man and, he
deserved it, but if I killed anybody else I did it unknowingly, and so I
am not responsible.
It was Ford who once said of Hemingway, he comes and sits at my
feet and praises me. It makes me nervous. Hemingway also said once,
I turn my flame which is a small one down and down and then suddenly
there is a big explosion. If there were nothing but explosions my work
would be so exciting nobody could bear it.
However, whatever I say, Gertrude Stein always says, yes I know but
I have a weakness for Hemingway.
Jane Heap turned up one afternoon. The Little Review had printed
the Birthplace of Bonnes and The Valentine to Sherwood Anderson.
Jane Heap sat down and we began to talk. She stayed to dinner and
she stayed the evening and by dawn the little ford car Godiva which
had been burning its lights all night waiting to be taken home could
hardly start to take Jane home. Gertrude Stein then and always liked
Jane Heap immensely, Margaret Anderson interested her much less.
It was now once more summer and this time we went to the Cote
d'Azur and joined the Picassos at Antibes. It was there I first saw Pi-
casso's mother. Picasso looks extraordinarily like her. Gertrude Stein
and Madame Picasso had difficulty in talking not having a common
language but they talked enough to amuse themselves. They were talk-
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 183
ing about Picasso when Gertrude Stein first knew him. He was remark-
ably beautiful then, said Gertrude Stein, he was illuminated as if he
wore a halo. Oh, said Madame Picasso, if you thought him beautiful
then I assure you it was nothing compared to his looks when he was a
boy. He was an angel and a devil in beauty, no one could cease looking
at him. And now, said Picasso a little resentfully. Ah now, said they
together, ah now there is no such beauty left. But, added his mother,
you are very sweet and as a son very perfect. So he had to be satisfied
with that.
It was at this time that Jean Cocteau who prides himself on being
eternally thirty was writing a little biography of Picasso, and he sent
him a telegram asking him to tell him the date of his birth. And yours,
telegraphed back Picasso.
There are so many stories about Picasso and Jean Cocteau. Picasso like
Gertrude Stein is easily upset if asked to do something suddenly and
Jean Cocteau does this quite successfully. Picasso resents it and revenges
himself at greater length. Not long ago there was a long story.
Picasso was in Spain, in Barcelona, and a friend of his youth who was
editor of a paper printed, not in Spanish but in Catalan, interviewed him.
Picasso knowing that the interview to be printed in Catalan was prob-
ably never going to be printed in Spanish, thoroughly enjoyed himself.
He said that Jean Cocteau was getting to be very popular in Paris, so
popular that you could find his poems on the table of any smart coiffeur.
As I say he thoroughly enjoyed himself in giving this interview and
then returned to Paris.
Some Catalan in Barcelona sent the paper to some Catalan friend in
Paris and the Catalan friend in Paris translated it to a french friend
and the french friend printed the interview in a french paper.
Picasso and his wife told us the story together of what happened then.
As soon as Jean saw the article, he tried to see Pablo. Pablo refused to
see him, he told the maid to say that he was always out and for days
they could not answer the telephone. Cocteau finally stated in an inter-
view given to the french press that the interview which had wounded
him so sorely had turned out to be an interview with Picabia and not
an interview with Picasso, his friend. Picabia of course denied this. Coc-
teau implored Picasso to give a public denial. Picasso remained discreetly
at home.
The first evening the Picassos went out they went to the theatre and
184 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
there in front of them seated was Jean Cocteau's mother. At the first
intermission they went up to her, and surrounded by all their mutual
friends she said, my dear, you cannot imagine the relief to me and to
Jean to know that it was not you that gave out that vile interview, do
tell me that it was not.
And as Picasso's wife said, I as a mother could not let a mother suffer
and I said of course it was not Picasso and Picasso said, yes yes of course
it was not, and so the public retraction was given.
It was this summer that Gertrude Stein, delighting in the movement
of the tiny waves on the Antibes shore, wrote the Completed Portrait of
Picasso, the Second Portrait of Carl Van Vechten, and The Book of Con-
cluding With As A Wife Has A Cow A Lo,ve Story this afterwards
beautifully illustrated by Juan Gris.
Robert McAlmon had definitely decided to public The Making of
Americans, and we were to correct proofs that summer. The summer be-
fore we had intended as usual to meet the Picassos at Antibes. I had been
reading the Guide des Gourmets and I had found among other places
where one ate well, Pernollet's Hotel in the town of Belley. Belley is its
name and Belley is its nature, as Gertrude Stein's elder brother re-
marked. We arrived there about the middle of August. On the map it
looked as if it were high up in the mountains and Gertrude Stein does
not like precipices and as we drove through the gorge I was nervous and
she protesting, but finally the country opened out delightfully and we
arrived in Belley. It was a pleasant hotel although it had no garden and
we had intended that it should have a garden. We stayed on for several
days.
Then Madame Pernollet, a pleasant round faced woman said to us
that since we were evidently staying on why did we not make rates by
the day or by the week. We said we would. In the meanwhile the
Picassos wanted to know what had become of us. We replied that we
were in Belley. We found that Belley was the birthplace of Brillat-
Savarin. We now in Bilignin are enjoying using the furniture from the
house of Brillat-Savarin which house belongs to the owner of this house.
We also found that Lamartine had been at school in Belley and Ger-
trude Stein says that wherever Lamartine stayed any length of time one
eats well. Madame Recamier also comes from this region and the place
is full of descendants of her husband's family. All these things we found
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 185
out gradually but for the moment we were comfortable and we stayed
on and left late. The following summer we were to correct proofs of
The Making of Americans and so we left Paris early and came again
to Belley. What a summer it was.
The Making of Americans is a book one thousand pages long, closely
printed on large pages. Darantiere has told me it has five hundred and
sixty-five thousand words. It was written in nineteen hundred and six
to nineteen hundred and eight, and except for the sections printed in
Transatlantic it was all still in manuscript.
The sentences as the book goes on get longer and longer, they are some-
times pages long and the compositors were french, and when they made
mistakes and left out a line the effort of getting it back again was terrific.
We used to leave the hotel in the morning with camp chairs, lunch
and proof, and all day we struggled with the errors of French com-
positors. Proof had to be corrected most of it four times and finally I
broke my glasses, my eyes gave out, and Gertrude Stein finished alone.
We used to change the scene of our labours and we found lovely spots
but there were always to accompany us those endless pages of printers'
errors. One of our favourite hillocks where we could see Mont Blanc in
the distance we called Madame Mont Blanc.
Another place we went to often was near a little pool made by a small
stream near a country cross-road. This was quite like the middle ages,
so many things used to happen there, in a very simple middle age way.
I remember once a country-man came up to us leading his oxen. Very
politely he said, ladies is there anything the matter with me. Why yes,
we replied, your face is covered with blood. Oh, he said, you see my
oxen were slipping down the hill and I held them back and I too slipped
and I wondered if anything had happened to me. We helped him wash
the blood off and he went on.
It was during this summer that Gertrude Stein began two long things,
A Novel and the Phenomena of Nature which was to lead later to the
whole series of meditations on grammar and sentences.
It led first to An Acquaintance With Description, afterwards printed
by the Seizin Press. She began at this time to describe landscape as if
anything she saw was a natural phenomenon, a thing existent in itself,
and she found it, this exercise, very interesting and it finally led her to
the later series of Operas and Plays. I am trying to be as commonplace as
186 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
I can be, she used to say to me. And then sometimes a little worried, it
is not too commonplace. The last thing that she had finished, Stanzas
of Meditation, and which I am now typewriting, she considers her real
achievement of the commonplace.
But to go back. We returned to Paris, the proofs almost done, and
Jane Heap was there. She was very excited. She had a wonderful plan,
I have now quite forgotten what it was, but Gertrude Stein was enor-
mously pleased with it. It had something to do with a plan for another
edition of The Making of Americans in America.
At any rate in the various complications connected with this matter
McAlmon became very angry and not without reason, and The Mak-
ing of Americans appeared but McAlmon and Gertrude Stein were no
longer friends.
When Gertrude Stein was quite young her brother once remarked
to her, that she, having been born in February, was very like George
Washington, she was impulsive and slow-minded. Undoubtedly a great
many complications have been the result.
One day in this same spring we were going to visit a new spring salon.
Jane Heap had been telling us of a young russian in whose work she
was interested. As we were crossing a bridge in Godiva we saw Jane
Heap and the young russian. We saw his pictures and Gertrude Stein
too was interested. He of course came to see us.
In How To Write Gertrude Stein makes this sentence, Painting now
after its great period has come back to be a minor art.
She was very interested to know who was to be the leader of this art.
This is the story.
The young russian was interesting. He was painting, so he said,
colour that was no colour, he was painting blue pictures and he was
painting three heads in one. Picasso had been drawing three heads in
one. Soon the russian was painting three figures in one. Was he the only
one. In a way he was although there was a group of them. This group,
very shortly after Gertrude Stein knew the russian, had a show at one
of the art galleries, Druet's I think. The group then consisted of the
russian, a frenchman, a very young dutchman, and two russian brothers.
All of them except the dutchman about twenty-six years old.
At this show Gertrude Stein met George Antheil who asked to come
to see her and when he came he brought with him Virgil Thomson.
Gertrude Stein had not found George Antheil particularly interesting
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 187
although she liked him, but Virgil Thomson she found very interesting
although I did riot like him.
However all this I will tell about later. To go back now to painting.
The russian Tchelitchev's work was the most vigorous of the group
and the most mature and the most interesting. He had already then
a passionate enmity m against the frenchman whom they called Bebe
Berard and whose name was Christian Berard and whom Tchefttchev
said copied everything.
Rene Crevel had been the friend of all these painters. Some time later
one of them was to have a one man show at the Gallerie Pierre. We were
going to it and on the way we met Rene. We all stopped, he was exhila-
rated with exasperation. He talked with his characteristic brilliant vio-
lence. These painters, he said, sell their pictures for several thousand
francs apiece and they have the pretentiousness which comes from being
valued in terms of money, and we writers who have twice their quality
and infinitely greater vitality cannot earn a living and have to beg and
intrigue to induce publishers to publish us; but the time will come, and
Rene became prophetic, when these same painters will come to us to
re-create them and then we will contemplate them with indifference.
Rene was then and has remained ever since a devout surrealiste. He
needs and needed, being a frenchman, an intellectual as well as a basal
justification for the passionate exaltation in him. This he could not find,
being of the immediate postwar generation, in either religion or patriot-
ism, the war having destroyed for his generation, both patriotism and
religion as a passion. Surrcalisme has been his justification. It has clari-
fied for him the confused negation in which he lived and loved. This he
alone of his generation has really succeeded in expressing, a little in his
earlier books, and in his last book, The Clavecin of Diderot very ade-
quately and with the brilliant violence that is his quality.
Gertrude Stein was at first not interested in this group of painters as
a group but only in the russian. This interest gradually increased and
then she was bothered. Granted, she used to say, that the influences
which make a new movement in art and literature have continued and
are making a new movement in art and literature; in order to seize these
influences and create as well as re-create them there needs a very domi-
nating creative power. This the russian manifestly did not have. Still
there was a distinctly new creative idea. Where had it come from. Ger-
trude Stein always says to the young painters when they complain that
188 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
she changes her mind about their work, it is not I that change my mind
about the pictures, but the paintings disappear into the wall, I do not
see them any more and then they go out of the door naturally.
In the meantime as I have said George Antheil had brought Virgil
Thomson to the house and Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein became
friends and saw each other a great deal. Virgil Thomson had put a num-
ber of Gertrude Stein's things to music, Susie Asado, Preciosilla and
Capital Capitals. Gertrude Stein was very much interested in Virgil
Thomson's music. He had understood Satie undoubtedly and he had a
comprehension quite his own of prosody. He understood a great deal of
Gertrude Stein's work, he used to dream at night that there was some-
thing there that he did not understand, but on the whole he was very
well content with that which he did understand. She delighted in listen-
ing to her words framed by his music. They saw a great deal of each
other.
Virgil had in his room a great many pictures by Christian Berard and
Gertrude Stein used to look at them a great deal. She could not find out
at all what she thought about them.
She and Virgil Thomson used to talk about them endlessly. Virgil
said he knew nothing about pictures but he thought these wonderful.
Gertrude Stein told him about her perplexity about the new movement
and that the creative power behind it was not the russian. Virgil said
that there he quite agreed with her and he was convinced that it was
Bebe Berard, baptised Christian. She said that perhaps that was the an-
swer but she was very doubtful. She used to say of Bcrard's pictures,
they are almost something and then they are just not. As she used to
explain to Virgil, the Catholic Church makes a very sharp distinction
between a hysteric and a saint. The same thing holds true in the art
world. There is the sensitiveness of the hysteric which has all the appear-
ance of creation, but actual creation has an individual force which is an
entirely different thing. Gertrude Stein was inclined to believe that
artistically Berard was more hysteric than saint. At this time she had
come back to portrait writing with renewed vigour and she, to clarify
her mind, as she said, did portraits of the russian and of the frenchman.
In the meantime, through Virgil Thomson, she had met a young
frenchman named Georges Hugnet. He and Gertrude Stein became
very devoted to one another. He liked the sound of her writing and
then he liked the sense and he liked the sentences.
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 189
At his home were a great many portraits of himself painted by his
friends. Among others one by one of the two russian brothers and one
by a young englishman. Gertrude Stein was not particularly interested in
any of these portraits. There was however a painting of a hand by this
young englishman which she did not like but which she remembered.
Every one began at this time to be very occupied with their own
affairs. Virgil Thomson had asked Gertrude Stein to write an opera for
him. Among the saints there were two saints whom she had always liked
better than any others, Saint Theresa of Avila and Ignatius Loyola, and
she said she would write him an opera about these two saints. She began
this and worked very hard at it all that spring and finally finished Four
Saints and gave it to Virgil Thomson to put to music. He did. And it is
a completely interesting opera both as to words and music.
All these summers we had continued to go to the hotel in Belley. We
now had become so fond of this country, always the valley of the Rhone,
and of the people of the country, and the trees of the country, and the
oxen of the country, that we began looking for a house. One day we saw
the house of our dreams across a valley. Go and ask the farmer there
whose house that is, Gertrude Stein said to me. I said, nonsense it is an
important house and it is occupied. Go and ask him, she said. Very re-
luctantly I did. He said, well yes, perhaps it is for rent, it belongs to a
little girl, all her people are dead and I think there is a lieutenant of the
regiment stationed in Belley living there now, but I understand they
were to leave. You might go and see the agent of the property. We did.
He was a kindly old farmer who always told us allez doucement, go
slowly. We did. We had the promise of the house, which we never saw
any nearer than across the valley, as soon as the lieutenant should leave.
Finally three years ago the lieutenant went to Morocco and we took the
house still only having seen it from across the valley and we have liked
it always more.
While we were still staying at the hotel, Natalie Barney came one
day and lunched there bringing some friends, among them, the Duchess
of Clermont-Tonnerre. Gertrude Stein and she were delighted with one
another and the meeting led to many pleasant consequences, but of that
later.
To return to the painters. Just after the opera was finished and before
leaving Paris we happened to go to a show of pictures at the Gallerie
Bonjean. There we met one of the russian brothers, Genia Berman, and
190 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
Gertrude Stein was not uninterested in his pictures. She went with him
to his studio and looked at everything he had ever painted. He seemed
to have a purer intelligence than the other two painters who certainly
had not created the modern movement, perhaps the idea had been orig-
inally his. She asked him, telling her story as she was fond of telling it
at that time to any one who would listen, had he originated the idea.
He said with an intelligent inner smile that he thought he had. She was
not at all sure that he was not right. He came down to Bilignin to see
us and she slowly concluded that though he was a very good painter he
was too bad a painter to have been the creator of an idea. So once more
the search began.
Again just before leaving Paris at this same picture gallery she saw
a picture of a poet sitting by a waterfall. Who did that, she said. A young
englishman, Francis Rose, was the reply. Oh yes I am not interested in
his work. How much is that picture, she said : It cost very little. Gertrude
Stein says a picture is either worth three hundred francs or three hun-
dred thousand francs. She bought this for three hundred and we went
away for the summer.
Georges Hugnet had decided to become an editor and he began edit-
ing the Editions de la Montagne. Actually it was George Maratier, every-
body's friend who began this edition, but he decided to go to America
and become an american and Georges Hugnet inherited it. The first
book to appear was sixty pages in french of The Making of Americans.
Gertrude Stein and Georges Hugnet translated them together and she
was very happy about it. This was later followed by a volume of Ten
Portraits written by Gertrude Stein and illustrated by portraits of the
artists of themselves, and of the others drawn by them, Virgil Thomson
by Berard and a drawing of Berard by himself, a portrait of Tchelitchev
by himself, a portrait of Picasso by himself and one of Guillaume Apol-
linaire and one of Erik Satie by Picasso, one of Kristians Tonny the
young dutchman by himself and one of Bernard Fay by Tonny. These
volumes were very well received and everybody was pleased.
Once more everybody went away.
Gertrude Stein in winter takes her white poodle Basket to be bathed
at a vet's and she used to go to the picture gallery where she had
bought the englishman's romantic picture and wait for Basket to dry.
Every time she came home she brought more pictures by the english-
man. She did not talk much about it but they accumulated. Several peo-
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 191
pie began to tell her about this young man and offered to introduce
him. Gertrude Stein declined. She said no she had had enough of know-
ing young painters, she now would content herself with knowing young
painting.
In the meantime Georges Hugnet wrote a poem called Enfance. Ger-
trude Stein offered to translate it for him but instead she wrote a poem
about it. This at first pleased Georges Hugnet too much and then did
not please him at all. Gertrude Stein then called the poem Before The
Flowers Of Friendship Faded Friendship Faded. Everybody mixed
themselves up in all this. The group broke up. Gertrude Stein was very
upset and then consoled herself by telling all about it in a delightful short
story called From Left to Right and which was printed in the London
Harper's Bazaar.
It was not long after this that one day Gertrude Stein called in the
concierge and asked him to hang up all the Francis Rose pictures, by
this time there were some thirty odd. Gertrude Stein was very much
upset while she was having this done. I asked her why she was doing it
if it upset her so much. She said she could not help it, that she felt that
way about it but to change the whole aspect of the room by adding these
thirty pictures was very upsetting. There the matter rested for some
time.
To go back again to those days just after the publication of The Mak-
ing of Americans. There was at that time a review of Gertrude Stein's
book Geography and Plays in the Athenaeum signed Edith Sitwell.
The review was long and a little condescending but I liked it. Gertrude
Stein had not cared for it. A year later in the London Vogue was an
article again by Edith Sitwell saying that since writing her article in
the Athenaeum she had spent the year reading nothing but Geography
and Plays and she wished to say how important and beautiful a book
she had found it to be.
One afternoon at Elmer Harden's we met Miss Todd the editor of
the London Vogue. She said that Edith Sitwell was to be shortly in Paris
and wanted very much to meet Gertrude Stein. She said that Edith Sit-
well was very shy and hesitant about coming. Elmer Harden said he
would act as escort.
I remember so well my first impression of her, an impression which
indeed has never changed. Very tall, bending slightly, withdrawing and
hesitatingly advancing, and beautiful with the most distinguished nose
192 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
I have ever seen on any human being. At that time and in conversation
between Gertrude Stein and herself afterwards, I delighted in the deli-
cacy and completeness of her understanding of poetry. She and Gertrude
Stein became friends at once. This friendship like all friendships has had
its difficulties but I am convinced that fundamentally Gertrude Stein
and Edith Sitwell are friends and enjoy being friends.
We saw a great deal of Edith Sitwell at this time and then she went
back to London. In the autumn of that year nineteen twenty-five Ger-
trude Stein had a letter from the president of the literary society of
Cambridge asking her to speak before them in the early spring. Gertrude
Stein quite completely upset at the very idea quite promptly answered
no. Immediately came a letter from Edith Sitwell saying that the no
must be changed to yes. That it was of the first importance that Ger-
trude Stein should deliver this address and that moreover Oxford was
waiting for the yes to be given to Cambridge to ask her to do the same
at Oxford.
There was very evidently nothing to do but to say yes and so Ger-
trude Stein said yes.
She was very, upset at the prospect, peace, she said, had much greater
terrors than war. Precipices even were nothing to this. She was very low
in her mind. Luckily early in January the ford car began to have every-
thing the matter with it. The better garages would not pay much atten-
tion to aged fords and Gertrude Stein used to take hers out to a shed
in Montrouge where the mechanics worked at it while she sat. If she
were to leave it there there would most likely have been nothing left of
it to drive away.
One cold dark afternoon she went out to sit with her ford car and
while she sat on the steps of another battered ford watching her own
being taken to pieces and put together again, she began to write. She
stayed there several hours and when she came back chilled, with the
ford repaired, she had written the whole of Composition As Explanation.
Once the lecture written the next trouble was the reading of it.
Everybody gave her advice. She read it to anybody who came to the
house and some of them read it to her. Prichard happened to be in Paris
just then and he and Emily Chadbourne between them gave advice
and were an audience. Prichard showed her how to read it in the english
manner but Emily Chadbourne was all for the american manner and
Gertrude Stein was too worried to have any manner. We went one after-
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 193
noon to Natalie Barney's. There there was a very aged and a very
charming french professor of history. Natalie Barney asked him to tell
Gertrude Stein how to lecture. Talk as quickly as you can and never
look up, was his advice. Prichard had said talk as slowly as possible
and never look down. At any rate I ordered a new dress and a new hat
for Gertrude Stein and early in the spring we went to London.
This was the spring of twenty-six and England was still very strict
about passports. We had ours alright but Gertrude Stein hates to answer
questions from officials, it always worries her and she was already none
too happy at the prospect of lecturing.
So taking both passports I went down stairs to see the officials. Ah,
said one of them, and where is Miss Gertrude Stein. She is on deck,
I replied, and she does not care to come down. She does not care to
come down, he repeated, yes that is quite right, she does not care to come
down, and he affixed the required signatures. So then we arrived in
London. Edith Sitwell gave a party for us and so did her brother Osbert.
Osbert was a great comfort to Gertrude Stein. He so thoroughly under-
stood every possible way in which one could be nervous that as he sat
beside her in the hotel telling her all the kinds of ways that he and she
could suffer from stage fright she was quite soothed. She was always
very fond of Osbert. She always said he was like an uncle of a king. He
had that pleasant kindly irresponsible agitated calm that an uncle of an
cnglish king always must have.
Finally we arrived in Cambridge in the afternoon, were given tea
and then dined with the president of the society and some of his friends.
It was very pleasant and after dinner we went to the lecture room. It was
a varied audience, men and women. Gertrude Stein was soon at her ease,
the lecture went off very well, the men afterwards asked a great many
questions and were very enthusiastic. The women said nothing. Ger-
trude Stein wondered whether they were supposed not to or just did not.
The day after we went to Oxford. There we lunched with young
Acton and then went in to the lecture. Gertrude Stein was feeling more
comfortable as a lecturer and this time she had a wonderful time. As
she remarked afterwards, I felt just like a prima donna.
The lecture room was full, many standing in the back, and the dis-
cussion, after the lecture, lasted over an hour and no one left. It was
very exciting. They asked all sorts of questions, they wanted to know
most often why Gertrude Stein thought she was right in doing the kind
194 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
of writing she did. She answered that it was not a question of what any
one thought but after all she had been doing as she did for about twenty
years and now they wanted to hear her lecture. This did not mean of
course that they were coming to think that her way was a possible way,
it proved nothing, but on the other hand it did possibly indicate some-
thing. They laughed. Then up jumped one man, it turned out after-
wards that he was a dean, and he said that in the Saints in Seven he had
been very interested in the sentence about the ring around the moon,
about the ring following the moon. He admitted that the sentence was
one of the most beautifully balanced sentences he had ever heard, but
still did the ring follow the moon. Gertrude Stein said, when you look
at the moon and there is a ring around the moon and the moon moves
does not the ring follow the moon. Perhaps it seems to, he replied.
Well, in that case how, she said, do you know that it does not; he sat
down. Another man, a don, next to him jumped up and asked some-
thing else. They did this several times, the two of them, jumping up one
after the other. Then the first man jumped up and said, you say that
everything being the same everything is always different, how can that
be so. Consider, she replied, the two of you, you jump up one after the
other, that is the same thing and surely you admit that the two of you
are always different. Touche, he said and the meeting was over. One
of the men was so moved that he confided to me as we went out that
the lecture had been his greatest experience since he had read Kant's
Critique of Pure Reason.
Edith Sitwell, Osbert and Sacheverell were all present and were all
delighted. They were delighted with the lecture and they were delighted
with the good humoured way in which Gertrude Stein had gotten the
best of the hecklers. Edith Sitwell said that Sache chuckled about it all
the way home.
The next day we returned to Paris. The Sitwells wanted us to stay
and be interviewed and generally go on with it but Gertrude Stein felt
that she had had enough of glory and excitement. Not, as she always
explains, that she could ever have enough of glory. After all, as she al-
ways contends, no artist needs criticism, he only needs appreciation. If he
needs criticism he is no artist.
Leonard Woolf some months after this published Composition As
Explanation in the Hogarth Essay Series. It was also printed in The
Dial.
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 195
Mildred Aldrich was awfully pleased at Gertrude Stein's english suc-
cess. She was a good new englander and to her, recognition by Oxford
and Cambridge, was even more important than recognition by the At-
lantic Monthly. We went out to see her on our return and she had to
have the lecture read to her again and to hear every detail of the whole
experience.
Mildred Aldrich was falling upon bad days. Her annuity suddenly
ceased and for a long time we did not know it. One day Dawson John-
ston, the librarian of the American Library, told Gertrude Stein that
Miss Aldrich had written to him to come out and get all her books as
she would soon be leaving her home. We went out immediately and
Mildred told us that her annuity had been stopped. It seems it was an
annuity given by a woman who had fallen into her dotage and she one
morning told her lawyer to cut off all the annuities that she had given
for many years to a number of people. Gertrude Stein told Mildred not
to worry. The Carnegie Fund, approached by Kate Buss, sent five hun-
dred dollars, William Cook gave Gertrude Stein a blank cheque to
supply all deficiencies, another friend of Mildred's from Providence
-.Rhode Island came forward generously and the Atlantic Monthly started
a fund. Very soon Mildred Aldrich was safe. She said ruefully to Ger-
trude Stein, you would not let me go elegantly to the poorhouse and I
would have gone elegantly, but you have turned this into a poor house
and I am the sole inmate. Gertrude Stein comforted her and said that
she could be just as elegant in her solitary state. After all, Gertrude Stein
used to say to her, Mildred nobody can say that you have not had a good
run for your money. Mildred Aldrich's last years were safe.
William Cook 'after the war had been in Russia, in Tiflis, for three
years in connection with Red Cross distribution there. One evening he
and Gertrude Stein had been out to see Mildred, it was during her last
illness and they were coming home one foggy evening. Cook had a small
open car but a powerful searchlight, strong enough to pierce the fog.
Just behind them was another small car which kept an even pace with
them, when Cook drove faster, they drove faster, and when he slowed
down, they slowed down. Gertrude Stein said to him, it is lucky for
them that you have such a bright light, their lanterns are poor and they
are having the benefit of yours. Yes, said Cook, rather curiously, I have
been saying that to myself, but you know after three years of Soviet
Russia and the Cheka, even I, an american, have gotten to feel a little
196 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
queer, and I have to talk to myself about it, to be sure that the car
behind us is not the car of the secret police.
I said that Rene Crevel came to the house. Of all the young men who
came to the house I think I liked Rene the best. He had french charm,
which when it is at its most charming is more charming even than amer-
ican charm, charming as that can be. Marcel Duchamp and Rene Crevel
are perhaps the most complete examples of this french charm. We were
very fond of Rene. He was young and violent and ill and revolutionary
and sweet and tender. Gertrude Stein and Rene are very fond of each
other, he writes her most delightful english letters, and she scolds him
a great deal. It was he who, in early days, first talked to us of Bernard
Fay. He said he was a young professor in the University of Clermont-
Ferrand and he wanted to take us to his house. One afternoon he did
take us there. Bernard Fay was not at all what Gertrude Stein expected
and he and she had nothing in particular to say to each other.
As I remember during that winter and the next we gave a great many
parties. We gave a tea party for the Sitwells.
Carl Van Vechten sent us quantities of negroes beside there were
the negroes of our neighbour Mrs. Regan who had brought Josephine
Baker to Paris. Carl sent us Paul Robeson. Paul Robeson interested Ger-
trude Stein. He knew american values and american life as only one in
it but not of it could know them. And yet as soon as any other person
came into the room he became definitely a negro. Gertrude Stein did
not like hearing him sing spirituals. They do not belong to you any
more than anything else, so why claim them, she said. He did not
answer.
Once a southern woman, a very charming southern woman, was there,
and she said to him, where were you born, and he answered, in New
Jersey and she said, not in the south, what a pity and he said, not for me.
Gertrude Stein concluded that negroes were not suffering from per-
secution, they were suffering from nothingness. She always contends that
the african is not primitive, he has a very ancient but a very narrow
culture and there it remains. Consequently nothing does or can happen.
Carl Van Vechten himself came over for the first time since those far
away days of the pleated shirt. All those years he and Gertrude Stein
had kept up a friendship and a correspondence. Now that he was actu-
ally coming Gertrude Stein was a little worried. When he came they
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 197
were better friends than ever. Gertrude Stein told him that she had been
worried. I wasn't, said Carl.
Among the other young men who came to the house at the time when
they came in such numbers was Bravig Imbs. We liked Bravig, even
though as Gertrude Stein said, his aim was to please. It was he who
brought Elliot Paul to the house and Elliot Paul brought transition.
We had liked Bravig Imbs but we liked Elliot Paul more. He was very
interesting. Elliot Paul was a new englander but he was a saracen, a
saracen such as you sometimes see in the villages of France where the
strain from some Crusading ancestor's dependents still survives. Elliot
Paul was such a one. He had an element not of mystery but of eva-
nescence, actually little by little he appeared and then as slowly he dis-
appeared, and Eugene Jolas and Maria Jolas appeared. These once hav-
ing appeared, stayed in their appearance.
Elliot Paul was at that time working on the Paris Chicago Tribune
and he was there writing a series of articles on the work of Gertrude
Stein, the first seriously popular estimation of her work. At the same
time he was turning the young journalists and proof-readers into writers.
He started Bravig Imbs on his first book, The Professor's Wife, by stop-
ping him suddenly in his talk and saying, you begin there. He did the
same thing for others. He played the accordion as nobody else not native
to the accordion could play it and he learned and played for Gertrude
Stein accompanied on the violin by Bravig Imbs, Gertrude Stein's fa-
vourite ditty, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, My name is June and
very very soon.
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine as a song made a lasting appeal to
Gertrude Stein. Mildred Aldrich had it among her records and when
we spent the afternoon with her at Huiry, Gertrude Stein inevitably
would start The Trail of the Lonesome Pine on the phonograph and
play it and play it. She liked it in itself and she had been fascinated
during the war with the magic of The Trail of the Lonesome Pine as
a book for the doughboy. How often when a doughboy in hospital had
become particularly fond of her, he would say, I once read a great book,
do you know it, it is called The Trail of the Lonesome Pine. They finally
got a copy of it in the camp at Nimes and it stayed by the bedside of
every sick soldier. They did not read much of it, as far as she could make
out sometimes only a paragraph, in the course of several days, but their
198 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
voices were husky when they spoke of it, and when they were particu-
larly devoted to her they would ofTer to lend her this very dirty and tat-
tered copy.
She reads anything and naturally she read this and she was puzzled.
It had practically no story to it and it was not exciting, or adventurous,
and it was very well written and was mostly description of mountain
scenery. Later on she came across some reminiscences of a southern
woman who told how the mountaineers in the southern army during
the civil war used to wait in turn to read Victor Hugo's Les Miserables,
an equally astonishing thing for again there is not much of a story and
a great deal of description. However Gertrude Stein admits that she
loves the song of The Trail of the Lonesome Pine in the same way that
the doughboy loved the book and Elliot Paul played it for her on the
accordion.
One day Elliot Paul came in very excitedly, he usually seemed to be
feeling a great deal of excitement but neither showed nor expressed it.
This time however he did show it and express it. He said he wanted to
ask Gertrude Stein's advice. A proposition had been made to him to
edit a magazine in Paris and he was hesitating whether he should under-
take it. Gertrude Stein was naturally all for it. After all, as she said, we
do want to be printed. One writes for oneself and strangers but with no
adventurous publishers how can one come in contact with those same
strangers.
However she was very fond of Elliot Paul and did not want him to
take too much risk. No risk, said Elliot Paul, the money for it is guar-
anteed for a number of years. Well then, said Gertrude Stein, one thing
is certain no one could be a better editor than you would be. You are not
egotistical and you know what you feel.
Transition began and of course it meant a great deal to everybody.
Elliot Paul chose with great care what he wanted to put into transition.
He said he was afraid of its becoming too popular. If ever there are more
than two thousand subscribers, I quit, he used to say.
He chose Elucidation Gertrude Stein's first effort to explain herself,
written in Saint-Remy to put into the first number of transition. Later
As A Wife Has A Cow A Love Story. He was always very enthusiastic
about this story. He liked Made A Mile Away, a description of the pic-
tures that Gertrude Stein has liked and later a novelette of desertion If
He Thinks, for transition. He had a perfectly definite idea of gradually
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 199
opening the eyes of the public to the work of the writers that interested
him and as I say he chose what he wanted with great care. He was very
interested in Picasso and he became very deeply interested in Juan Gris
and after his death printed a translation of Juan Gris' defence of paint-
ing which had already been printed in french in the Transatlantic Re-
view, and he printed Gertrude Stein's lament, The Life and Death of
Juan Gris and her One Spaniard.
Elliot Paul slowly disappeared and Eugene and Maria Jolas appeared.
Transition grew more bulky. At Gertrude Stein's request transition
reprinted Tender Buttons, printed a bibliography of all her work up to
date and later printed her opera, Four Saints. For these printings Ger-
trude Stein was very grateful. In the last numbers of transition nothing
of hers appeared. Transition died.
Of all the little magazines which as Gertrude Stein loves to quote,
have died to make verse free, perhaps the youngest and freshest was the
Blues. Its editor Charles Henri Ford has come to Paris and he is young
and fresh as his Blues and also honest which also is a pleasure. Gertrude
Stein thinks that he and Robert Coates alone among the young men
have an individual sense of words.
During this time Oxford and Cambridge men turned up from time
to time at the rue de Fleurus. One of them brought with him Brewer,
one of the firm of Payson and Clarke.
Brewer was interested in the work of Gertrude Stein and though he
promised nothing he and she talked over the possibilities of his firm
printing something of hers. She had just written a shortish novel called
A Novel, and was at the time working at another shortish novel which
was called Lucy Church Amiably and which she describes as a novel of
romantic beauty and nature and which looks like an engraving. She at
Brewer's request wrote a summary of this book as an advertisement and
he cabled his enthusiasm. However he wished first to commence with
a collection of short things and she suggested in that case he should make
it all the short things she had written about America and call it Useful
Knowledge. This was done.
There are many Paris picture dealers who like adventure in their
business, there are no publishers in America who like adventure in theirs.
In Paris there are picture dealers like Durand-Ruel who went broke
twice suporting the impressionists, Vollard for Cezanne, Sagot for
Picasso and Kahnweiler for all the cubists. They make their money as
200 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
t
they can and they keep on buying something for which there is no
present sale and they do so persistently until they create its public. And
these adventurers are adventurous because that is the way they feel about
it. There are others who have not chosen as well and have gone entirely
broke. It is the tradition among the more adventurous Paris picture
dealers to adventure. I suppose there are a great many reasons why pub-
lishers do not. John Lane alone among publishers did. He perhaps did
not die a very rich man but he lived well, and died a moderately rich one.
We had a hope that Brewer might be this kind of a publisher. He
printed Useful Knowledge, his results were not all that he anticipated
and instead of continuing and gradually creating a public for Gertrude
Stein's work he procrastinated and then said no. I suppose this was in-
evitable. However that was the matter as it was and as it continued to be.
I now myself began to think about publishing the work of Gertrude
Stein. I asked her to invent a name for my edition and she laughed and
said, call it Plain Edition. And Plain Edition it is.
All that I knew about what I would have to do was that I would have
to get the book printed and then to get it distributed, that is sold.
I talked to everybody about how these two things were to be accom-
plished.
At first I thought I would associate some one with me but that soon
did not please me and I decided to do it all by myself.
Gertrude Stein wanted the first book Lucy Church Amiably to look
like a school book and to be bound in blue. Once having ordered my
book to be printed my next problem was the problem of distribution.
On this subject I received a great deal of advice. Some of the advice
turned out to be good and some of it turned out to be bad. William A.
Bradley, the friend and comforter of Paris authors, told me to subscribe
to The Publishers' Weekly. This was undoubtedly wise advice. This
helped me to learn something of my new business, but the real difficulty
was to get to the booksellers. Ralph Church, philosopher and friend,
said stick to the booksellers, first and last. Excellent advice but how to
get to the booksellers. At this moment a kind friend said that she could
get me copied an old list of booksellers belonging to a publisher. This
list was sent to me and I began sending out my circulars. The circular
pleased me at first but I soon concluded that it was not quite right. How-
ever I did get orders from America and I was paid without much diffi-
culty and I was encouraged.
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 201
The distribution in Paris was at once easier and more difficult. It was
easy to get the book put in the window of all the booksellers in Paris that
sold english books. This event gave Gertrude Stein a childish delight
amounting almost to ecstasy. She had never seen a book of hers in a
bookstore window before, except a french translation of The Ten Por-
traits, and she spent all her time in her wanderings about Paris looking
at the copies of Lucy Church Amiably in the windows and coming back
and telling me about it.
The books were sold too and then as I was away from Paris six months
in the year I turned over the Paris work to a french agent. This worked
very well at first but finally did not work well. However one must learn
one's trade.
I decided upon my next book How To Write and not being entirely
satisfied with the get up of Lucy Church Amiably, although it did look
like a school book, I decided to have the next book printed at Dijon and
in the form of an Elzevir. Again the question of binding was a difficulty.
I went to work in the same way to sell How To Write, but I began
to realise that my list of booksellers was out of date. Also I was told that
I should write following up letters. Ellen du Pois helped me with these.
I was told that I should have reviews. Ellen du Pois came to the rescue
here too. And that I should advertise. Advertising would of necessity
be too expensive; I had to keep my money to print my books, as my plans
were getting more and more ambitious. Getting reviews was a difficulty,
there are always plenty of humorous references to Gertrude Stein's work,
as Gertrude Stein always says to comfort herself, they do quote me, that
means that my words and my sentences get under their skins although
they do not know it. It was difficult to get serious reviews. There are
many writers who write her letters of admiration but even when they
are in a position to do so they do not write themselves down in book
reviews. Gertrude Stein likes to quote Browning who at a dinner party
met a famous literary man and this man came up to Browning and
spoke to him at length and in a very laudatory way about his poems.
Browning listened and then said, and are you going to print what you
have just said. There was naturally no answer. In Gertrude Stein's case
there have been some notable exceptions, Sherwood Anderson, Edith
Sitwell, Bernard Fay and Louis Bromfield.
I also printed an edition of one hundred copies, very beautifully done
at Chartres, of the poem of Gertrude Stein Before The Flowers Of
202 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
Friendship Faded Friendship Faded. These one hundred copies sold
very easily.
I was better satisfied with the bookmaking of How To Write but
there was always the question of binding the book. It is practically im-
possible to get a decent commercial binding in France, french publish-
ers only cover their books in paper. I was very troubled about this.
One evening we went to an evening party at Georges Poupet's, a
gentle friend of authors. There I met Maurice Darantiere. It was he
who had printed The Making of Americans and he was always justly
proud of it as a book and as bookmaking. He had left Dijon and had
started printing books in the neighbourhood of Paris with a hand-press
and he was printing very beautiful books. He js a kind man and I natu-
rally began telling him my troubles. Listen, he said I have the solution.
But I interrupted him, you must remember that I do not want to make
these books expensive. After all Gertrude Stein's readers are writers,
university students, librarians and young people who have very little
money. Gertrude Stein wants readers not collectors. In spite of herself
her books have too often become collector's books. They pay big prices
for Tender Buttons and The Portrait of Mabel Dodge and that does
not please her, she wants her books read not owned. Yes yes, he said, I
understand. No this is what I propose. We will have your book set by
monotype which is comparatively cheap, I will see to that, then I will
handpull your books on good but not too expensive paper and they will
be beautifully printed and instead of any covers I will have them bound
in heavy paper like The Making of Americans, paper just like that, and
I will have made little boxes in which they will fit perfectly, well made
little boxes and there you are. And I will be able to sell them at a rea-
sonable price. Yes you will see, he said.
I was getting more ambitious I wished now to begin a series of three,
beginning with Operas and Plays, going on with Matisse, Picasso and
Gertrude Stein and Two Shorter Stories, and then going on with Two
Long Poems and Many Shorter Ones.
Maurice Darantiere has been as good as his word. He has printed
Operas and Plays and it is a beautiful book and reasonable in price and
he is now printing the second book Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein
and Two Shorter Stories. Now I have an up to date list of booksellers
and I am once more on my way.
As I was saying after the return from England and lecturing we gave
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 203
a great many parties, there were many occasions for parties, all the Sit-
wells came over, Carl Van Vechten came over, Sherwood Anderson
came over again. And beside there were many other occasions for parties.
It was then that Gertrude Stein and Bernard Fay met again and this
time they had a great deal to say to each other. Gertrude Stein found the
contact with his mind stimulating and comforting. They were slowly
coming to be friends.
I remember once coming into the room and hearing Bernard Fay say
that the three people of first rate importance that he had met in his life
were Picasso, Gertrude Stein and Andre Gide and Gertrude Stein in-
quired quite simply, that is quite right but why include Gide. A year or
so later in referring to this conversation he said to her, and I ahi not sure
you were not right.
Sherwood came to Paris that winter and he was a delight. He was
enjoying himself and we enjoyed him. He was being lionised and I must
say he was a very appearing and disappearing lion. I remember his being
asked to the Pen Club. Natalie Barney and a long-bearded frenchman
were to be his sponsors. He wanted Gertrude Stein to come too. She
said she loved him very much but not the Pen Club. Natalie Barney
came over to ask her. Gertrude Stein who was caught outside, walking
her dog, pleaded illness. The next day Sherwood turned up. How was
it, asked Gertrude Stein. Why, said he, it wasn't a party for me, it was
a party for a big woman, and she was just a derailed freight car. •
We had installed electric radiators in the studio, we were as our finnish
servant would say getting modern. She finds it difficult to understand
why we are not more modern. Gertrude Stein says that if you are way
ahead with your head you naturally are old fashioned and regular in
your daily life. And Picasso adds, do you suppose Michael Angelo would
have been grateful for a gift of a piece of renaissance furniture, no he
wanted a greek coin.
We did install electric radiators and Sherwood turned up and we gave
him a Christmas party. The radiators smelled and it was terrifically hot
but we were all pleased as it was a nice party. Sherwood looked as usual
very handsome in one of his very latest scarf ties. Sherwood Anderson
does dress well and his son John follows suit. John and his sister came
over with their father. While Sherwood was still in Paris John the son
was an awkward shy boy. The day after Sherwood left John turned up,
sat easily on the arm of the sofa and was beautiful to look upon and he
204 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
knew it. Nothing to the outward eye had changed but he had changed
and he knew it.
It was during this visit that Gertrude Stein and Sherwood Anderson
had all those amusing conversations about Hemingway. They enjoyed
each other thoroughly. They found out that they both had had and
continued to have Grant as their great american hero. They did not care
so much about Lincoln either of them. They had always and still liked
Grant. They even planned collaborating on a life of Grant. Gertrude
Stein still likes to think about this possibility.
We did give a great many parties in those days and the Duchess of
Clermont-Tonnerre came very often.
She and Gertrude Stein pleased«one another. They were entirely dif-
ferent in life education and interests but they delighted in each other's
understanding. They were also the only two women whom they met
who still had long hair. Gertrude Stein had always worn hers well on
top of her head, an ancient fashion that she had never changed.
Madame de Clermont-Tonnerre came in very late to one of the
parties, almost every one had gone, and her hair was cut. Do you like it,
said Madame de Clermont-Tonnerre. I do, said Gertrude Stein. Well, said
Madame de Clermont-Tonnerre, if you like it and my daughter likes it
and she does like it I am satisfied. That night Gertrude Stein said to
me, I guess I will have to too. Cut it off she said and I did.
I was still cutting the next evening, I had been cutting a little more
all day and by this time it was only a cap of hair when Sherwood Ander-
son came in. Well, how do you like it, said I rather fearfully. I like it,
he said, it makes her look like a monk.
As I have said, Picasso seeing it, was for a moment angry and said,
and my portrait, but very soon added, after all it is all there.
We now had our country house, the one we had only seen across the
valley and just before leaving we found the white poodle, Basket. He
was a little puppy in a little neighbourhood dog-show and he had blue
eyes, a pink nose and white hair and he jumped up into Gertrude Stein's
arms. A new puppy and a new ford we went off to our new house and
we were thoroughly pleased with all three. Basket although now he is
a large unwieldy poodle, still will get up on Gertrude Stein's lap and stay
there. She says that listening to the rhythm of his water drinking made
her recognise the difference between sentences and paragraphs, that para-
graphs are emotional and that sentences are not.
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 205
Bernard Fay came and stayed with us that summer. Gertrude Stein
and he talked out in the garden about everything, about life, and Amer-
ica, and themselves and friendship. They then cemented the friendship
that is one of the four permanent friendships of Gertrude Stein's life.
He even tolerated Basket for Gertrude Stein's sake. Lately Picabia has
given us a tiny mexican dog, we call Byron. Bernard Fay likes Byron for
Byron's own sake. Gertrude Stein teases him and says naturally he likes
Byron best because Byron is an american while just as naturally she likes
Basket best because Basket is a frenchman.
Bilignin brings me to a new old acquaintance. One day Gertrude Stein
came home from a walk to the bank and bringing out a card from her
pocket said, we are lunching to-morrow with the Bromfields. Way back
in the Hemingway days Gertrude Stein had met Bromfield and his wife
and then from time to time there had been a slight acquaintance, there
had even been a slight acquaintance with Bromfield's sister, and now
suddenly we were lunching with the Bromfields. Why, I asked, because
answered Gertrude Stein quite radiant, he knows all about gardens.
We lunched with the Bromfields and he does know all about gardens
and all about flowers and all about soils. Gertrude Stein and he first liked
each other as gardeners, then they liked each other as americans and then
they liked each other as writers. Gertrude Stein says of him that he is
as american as Janet Scudder, as american as a doughboy, but not as
solemn.
One day the Jolases brought Furman the publisher to the house. He
as have been many publishers was enthusiastic and enthusiastic about
The Making of Americans. But it is terribly long, it's a thousand pages,
said Gertrude Stein. Well, can't it be cut down, he said to about four
hundred. Yes, said Gertrude Stein, perhaps. Well cut it down and I will
publish it, said Furman.
Gertrude Stein thought about it and then did it. She spent a part of
the summer over it and Bradley as well as she and myself thought it
alright.
In the meantime Gertrude Stein had told Elliot Paul about the propo-
sition. It's alright when he is over here, said Elliot Paul, but when he
gets back the boys won't let him. Who the boys are I do not know but
they certainly did not let him. Elliot Paul was right. In spite of the efforts
of Robert Coates and Bradley nothing happened.
In the meantime Gertrude Stein's reputation among the french
206 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
writers and readers was steadily growing. The translation of the frag-
ments of the Making of Americans, and of the Ten Portraits interested
them. It was at this time that Bernard Fay wrote his article about her
work printed in the Revue Europeenne. They also printed the only thing
she has ever written in french a little film about the dog Basket.
They were very interested in her later work as well as her earlier work.
Marcel Brion wrote a serious criticism of her work in Echange, com-
paring her work to Bach. Since then, in Les Nouvelles Litteraires, he has
written of each of her books as they come out. He was particularly im-
pressed by How To Write.
About this time too Bernard Fay was translating a fragment of
Melanctha from Three Lives for the volume of Ten American Novelists,
this to be introduced by his article printed in the Revue Europeenne.
He came to the house one afternoon and read his translation of
Melanctha aloud to us. Madame de Clermont-Tonnerre was there and
she was very impressed by his translation.
One day not long after she asked to come to the house as she wished
to talk to Gertrude Stein. She came and she said, the time has now come
when you must be made known to a larger public. I myself believe in
a larger public. Gertrude Stein too believes in a larger public but the way
has always been barred. No, said Madame de Clermont-Tonnerre, the
way can be opened. Let us think.
She said it must come from the translation of a big book, an important
book. Gertrude Stein suggested the Making of Americans and told her
how it had been prepared for an American publisher to make about four
hundred pages. That will do exactly, she said. And went away.
Finally and not after much delay, Monsieur Bouteleau of Stock saw
Gertrude Stein and he decided to publish the book. There was some diffi-
culty about finding a translator, but finally that was arranged. Bernard
Fay aided by the Baronne Seilliere undertook the translation, and it is this
translation which is to appear this spring, and that this summer made
Gertrude Stein say, I knew it was a wonderful book in english, but it is
even, well, I cannot say almost really more wonderful but just as won-
derful in french.
Last autumn the day we came back to Paris from Bilignin I was as
usual very busy with a number of things and Gertrude Stein went out
to buy some nails at the bazaar of the rue de Rennes. There she met
AFTER THE WAR-1919-1932 207
Guevara, a Chilean painter and his wife. They are our neighbours, and
they said, come to tea to-morrow. Gertrude Stein said, but we are just
home, wait a bit. Do come, said Meraude Guevara. And then added,
there will be some one there you will like to see. Who is it, said Gertrude
Stein with a never failing curiosity. Sir Francis Rose, they said. Alright,
we'll come, said Gertrude Stein. By this time she no longer objected
to meeting Francis Rose. We met then and he of course immediately
came back to the house with her. He was, as may be imagined, quite
pink with emotion. And what, said he, did Picasso say when he saw my
paintings. When he first saw them, Gertrude Stein answered, he said,
at least they are less betes than the others. And since, he asked. And since
he always goes into the corner and turns the canvas over to look at them
but he says nothing.
Since then we have seen a great deal of Francis Rose but Gertrude
Stein has not lost interest in the pictures. He has this summer painted
the house from across the valley where we first saw it and the waterfall
celebrated in Lucy Church Amiably. He has also painted her portrait.
He likes it and I like it but she is not sure whether she does, but as she
has just said, perhaps she does. We had a pleasant time this summer,
Bernard Fay and Francis Rose both charming guests.
A young man who first made Gertrude Stein's acquaintance by writ-
ing engaging letters from America is Paul Frederick Bowles. Gertrude
Stein says of him that he is delightful and sensible in summer but neither
delightful nor sensible in the winter. Aaron Copeland came to see us with
Bowles in the summer and Gertrude Stein liked him immensely. Bowles
told Gertrude Stein and it pleased her that Copeland said threateningly
to him when as usual in the winter he was neither delightful nor sen-
sible, if you do not work now when you are twenty when you are thirty,
nobody will love you.
For some time now many people, and publishers, have been asking
Gertrude Stein to write her autobiography and she had always replied,
not possibly.
She began to tease me and say that I should write my autobiography.
Just think, she would say, what a lot of money you would make. She
then began to invent titles for my autobiography. My Life With The
Great, Wives of Geniuses I Have Sat With, My Twenty-five Years With
Gertrude Stein.
208 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS
Then she began to get serious and say, but really seriously you ought
to write your autobiography. Finally I promised that if during the sum-
mer I could find time I would write my autobiography.
When Ford Madox Ford was editing the Transatlantic Review he
once said to Gertrude Stein, I am a pretty good writer and a pretty good
editor and a pretty good business man but I find it very difficult to be
all three at once.
I am a pretty good housekeeper and a pretty good gardener and a
pretty good needlewoman and a pretty good secretary and a pretty good
editor and a pretty good vet for dogs and I have to do them all at once
and I found it difficult to add being a pretty good author.
About six weeks ago Gertrude Stein said, it^does not look to me as if
you were ever going to write that autobiography. You know what I am
going to do. I am going to write it for you, I am going to write it as
simply as Defoe did the autobiography of Robinson Crusoe. And she
has and this is it.
THE GRADUAL MAKING OF
The Making of Americans
This is one of the LECTURES IN AMERICA delivered by Miss Stein dur-
ing the season 1934-35 an^ published by Random House in 79^5. The
quotations from THE MAKING OF AMERICANS in the text are from the
abbreviated Harcourt, Brace and Co. edition. .
I am going to read what I have written to read, because in a general way
it is easier even if it is not better and in a general way it is better even if
it is not easier to read what has been written than to say what has not
been written. Any way that is one way to feel about it.
And I want to tell you about the gradual way of making The Making
of Americans. I made it gradually and it took me almost three years to
make it, but that is not what I mean by gradual. What I mean by
gradual is the way the preparation was made inside of me. Although
as I tell it it will sound historical, it really is not historical as I still very
much remember it. I do remember it. That is I can remember it. And
if you can remember, it may be history but it is not historical.
To begin with, I seem always to be doing the talking when I am
anywhere but in spite of that I do listen. I always listen. I always have
listened. I always have listened to the way everybody has to tell what they
have to say. In other words I always have listened in my way of listening
until they have told me and told me until I really know it, that is know
what they are.
I always as I admit seem to be talking but talking can be a way of
listening that is if one has the profound need of hearing and seeing what
every one is telling.
And I began very early in life to talk all the time and to listen all the
time. At least that is the way I feel about it.
I cannot remember not talking all the time and all the same feeling
that while I was talking while I was seeing that I was not only hearing
but seeing while I was talking and that at the same time the relation
between myself knowing I was talking and those to whom I was talk-
ing and incidentally to whom I was listening were coming to tell me
and tell me in their way everything that made them.
Those of you who have read The Making of Americans I think will
very certainly understand.
211
212 THE GRADUAL MAKING OF
When I was young and I am talking of a period even before I went
to college part of this talking consisted in a desire not only to hear what
each one was saying in every way everybody has of saying it but also
then of helping to change them and to help them change themselves.
I was very full of convictions in those days and I at that time thought
that the passion I had for finding out by talking and listening just how
everybody was always telling everything that was inside them that made
them that one, that this passion for knowing the basis of existence in
each one was in me to help them change themselves to become what they
should become. The changing should of course be dependent upon my
ideas and theirs theirs as much as mine at that time.
And so in those early days I wanted to know what was inside each
one which made them that one and I was deeply convinced that I needed
this to help them change something.
Then I went to college and there for a little while I was tremendously
occupied with finding out what was inside myself to make me what I
was. I think that does happen to one at that time. It had been happening
before going to college but going to college made it more lively. And
being so occupied with what made me myself inside me, made me per-
haps not stop talking but for awhile it made me stop listening.
At any rate that is the way it seems to me now looking back at it.
While I was at college and doing philosophy and psychology I became
more and more interested in my own mental and physical processes
and less in that of others and all I then was learning of what made
people what they were came to me by experience and not by talking and
listening.
Then as I say I became more interested in psychology, and one of the
things I did was testing reactions of the average college student in a
state of normal activity and in the state of fatigue induced by their ex-
aminations. I was supposed to be interested in their reactions but soon
I found that I was not but instead that I was enormously interested in
the types of their characters that is what I even then thought of as the
bottom nature of them, and when in May 1898 I wrote my half of the
report of these experiments I expressed these results as follows :
In these descriptions it will be readily observed that habits of atten-
tion are reflexes of the complete character of the individual.
Then that was over and I went to the medical school where I was
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 213
bored and where once more myself and my experiences were more ac-
tively interesting me than the life inside of others.
But then after that once more I began to listen, I had left the medical
school and I had for the moment nothing to do but talk and look and
listen, and I did this tremendously.
I then began again to think about the bottom nature in people, I began
to get enormously interested in hearing how everybody said the same
thing over and over again with infinite variations but over and over again
until finally if you listened with great intensity you could hear it rise
and fall and tell all that that there was inside them, not so much by the
actual words they said or the thoughts they had but the movement of
their thoughts and words endlessly the same and endlessly different.
Many things then come out in the repeating that make a history
of each one for any one who always listens to them. Many things
come out of each one and as one listens to them listens to all the
repeating in them, always this comes to be clear about them, the
history of them of the bottom nature in them, the nature or na-
tures mixed up in them to make the whole of them in anyway it
mixes up in them. Sometimes then there will be a history of every
one.
When you come to feel the whole of anyone from the beginning
to the ending, all the kind of repeating there is in them, the dif-
ferent ways at different times repeating comes out of them, all the
kinds of things and mixtures in each one, anyone can see then by
looking hard at any one living near them that a history of every
one must be a long one. A history of any one must be a long one,
slowly it comes out from them from their beginning to their end-
ing, slowly you can see it in them the nature and the mixtures in
them, slowly everything comes out from each one in the kind of
repeating each one does in the different parts and kinds of living
they have in them, slowly then the history of them comes out from
them, slowly then any one who looks well at any one will have the
history of the whole of that one. Slowly the history of each one comes
out of each one. Sometimes then there will be a history of every
one. Mostly every history will be a long one. Slowly it comes out
of each one, slowly any one who looks at them gets the history of
214 THE GRADUAL MAKING OF
each part of the living of any one in the history of the whole of
each one that sometime there will be of every one.*
Repeating then is in every one, in every one their being and their
feeling and their way of realizing everything and every one comes
out of them in repeating. More and more then every one comes to
be clear to some one.
Slowly every one in continuous repeating, to their minutest varia-
tion, comes to be clearer to some one. Every one who ever was or
is or will be living sometimes will be clearly realized by some one.
Sometime there will be an ordered history of every one. Slowly
every kind of one comes into ordered recognition. More and more
then it is wonderful in living the subtle variations coming clear
into ordered recognition, coming to make every one a part of some
kind of them, some kind of men and women. Repeating then is in
every one, every one then comes sometimes to be clearer to some one,
sometime there will be then an orderly history of every one who ever
was or is or will be living.f
Then I became very interested in resemblances, in resemblances and
slight differences between people. I began to make charts of all the people
I had ever known or seen, or met or remembered.
Every one is always busy with it, no one of them then ever want
to know it that every one looks like some one else and they see it
mostly every one dislikes to hear it. It is very important to me to al-
ways know it, to always see it which one looks like others and to
tell it. — The Making of Americans, page 211. I write for myself
and strangers, I do this for my own sake and for the sake of those
who know I know it that they look like other ones, that they are
separate and yet always repeated. There are some who like it that
I know they are like many others and repeat it, there are many who
never can really like it.
Every one is one inside them, every one reminds some one of
some other one who is or was or will be living. Every one has it to
say of each one he is like such a one I see it in him, every one has it
to say of each one she is like some one else I can tell by remember-
* The Making of Americans (Harcourt, Brace & Co.), Page 128.
t The Making of Americans.
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 215
ing. So it goes on always in living, every one is always remembering
some one who is resembling to the one at whom they are then look-
ing. So they go on repeating, every one is themselves inside them
and every one is resembling to others and that is always interesting.*
I began to see that as I saw when I saw so many students at college
that all this was gradually taking form. I began to get very excited about
it. I began to be sure that if I could only go on long enough and talk
and hear and look and see and feel enough and long enough I could
finally describe really describe every kind of human being that ever was
or is or would be living.
I got very wrapped up in all this. And I began writing The Making
of Americans.
Let me read you some passages to show you how passionately and how
desperately I felt about all this.
I am altogether a discouraged one. I am just now altogether a
discouraged one. I am going on describing men and women.*
I have been very glad to have been wrong. It is sometimes a very
hard thing to win myself to having been wrong about something.
I do a great deal of suffering.!
I was sure that in a kind of a way the enigma of the universe could
in this way be solved. That after all description is explanation, and if
I went on and on and on enough I could describe every individual
human being that could possibly exist. I did proceed to do as much as I
could.
Some time then there will be every kind of a history of every
one who ever can or is or was or will be living. Some time then
there will be a history of every one from their beginning to their
ending. Sometime then there will be a history of all of them, of
every kind of them, of every one, of every bit of living they ever
have in them, of them when there is never more than a beginning
to them, of every kind of them, of every one when there is very little
* The Making of Americans, Page 212.
* The Malting of Americans, Page 308.
t The Making of Americans, Page 310.
216 THE GRADUAL MAKING OF
beginning and then there is an ending, there will then sometime be
a history of every one there will be a history of everything that ever
was or is or will be them, of everything that was or is or will be all
of any one or all of all of them. Sometime then there will be a history
of every one, of everything or anything that is all them or any part
of them and sometime then there will be a history of how anything
or everything comes out from every one, comes out from every one
or any one from the beginning to the ending of the being in them.
Sometime then there must be a history of every one who ever was
or is or will be living. As one sees every one in their living, in their
loving, sitting, eating, drinking, sleeping, walking, working, think-
ing, laughing, as any one sees all of them from their beginning to
their ending, sees them when they are little babies or children or
young grown men and women or growing older men and women
or old men and women then one knows it in them that sometime
there will be a history of all of them, that sometime all of them will
have the last touch of being, a history of them can give to them,
sometime then there will be a history of each one, of all the kinds of
them, of all the ways any one can know them, of all the ways each
one is inside her or inside him, of all the ways anything of them
comes out from them. Sometime then there will be a history of every
one and so then every one will have in them the last touch of being a
history of any one can give to them.*
This is then a beginning of the way of knowing everything in
every one, of knowing the complete history of each one who ever
is or was or will be living. This is then a little description of the
winning of so much wisdom.f
Of course all the time things were happening that is in respect to my
hearing and seeing and feeling. I found that as often as I thought and
had every reason to be certain that I had included everything in my
knowledge of any one something else would turn up that had to be in-
cluded. I did not with this get at all discouraged I only became more
and more interested. And I may say that I am still more and more inter-
ested I find as many things to be added now as ever and that does make
it eternally interesting. So I found myself getting deeper and deeper into
* The Making of Americans, Page 124.
t The Making of Americans, Page 217.
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 217
the idea of describing really describing every individual that could exist.
While I was doing all this all unconsciously at the same time a mat-
ter of tenses and sentences came to fascinate me.
While I was listening and hearing and feeling the rhythm of each
human being I gradually began to feel the difficulty of putting it down.
Types of people I could put down but a whole human being felt at one
and the same time, in other words while in the act of feeling that person
was very difficult to put into words.
And so about the middle of The Making of Americans I became very
consciously obsessed by this very definite problem.
It happens very often that a man has it in him, that a man does
something, that he does it very often that he does many things,
when he is a young man when he is an old man, when he is an
older man. One of such of these kind of them had a little boy and
this one, the little son wanted to make a collection of butterflies and
beetles and it was all exciting to him and it was all arranged then
and then the father said to the son you are certain this is not a cruel
thing that you are wanting to be doing, killing things to make col-
lections of them, and the son was very disturbed then and they talked
about it together the two of them and more and more they talked
about it then and then at last the boy was convinced it was a cruel
thing and he said he would not do it and his father said the little
boy was a noble boy to give up pleasure when it was a cruel one.
The boy went to bed then and then the father when he got up in
the early morning saw a wonderfully beautiful moth in the room
an<J he caught him and he killed him and he pinned him and he
woke up his son then and showed it to him and he said to him see
what a good father I am to have caught and Hlled this one, the boy
was all mixed up inside him and then he said lie would go on with
his collecting and that was all there was then of discussing and this
is a little description of something that happened once and it is very
interesting.*
And this brings us to the question of grammar. So let me talk a little
about that.
You know by this time that although I do listen I do see I do hear
I do feel that I do talk.
* The Malting of Americans, Page 284.
218 THE GRADUAL MAKING OF
English grammar is interesting because it is so simple. Once you
really know how to diagram a sentence really know it, you know prac-
tically all you have to know about English grammar. In short any child
thirteen years old properly taught can by that time have learned every-
thing there is to learn about English grammar. So why make a fuss
about it. However one does.
It is this that makes the English language such a vital language that
the grammar of it is so simple and that one does make a fuss about it.
When I was up against the difficulty of putting down the complete
conception that I had of an individual, the complete rhythm of a per-
sonality that I had gradually acquired by listening seeing feeling and
experience, I was faced by the trouble that I had acquired all this knowl-
edge gradually but when I had it I had it completely at one time. Now
that may never have been a trouble to you but it was a terrible trouble
to me. And a great deal of The Making of Americans was a struggle
to do this thing, to make a whole present of something that it had taken
a great deal of time to find out, but it was a whole there then within
me and as such it had to be said.
That then and ever since has been a great deal of my work and it is
that which has made me try so many ways to tell my story.
In The Making of Americans I tried it in a variety of ways. And my
sentences grew longer and longer, my imaginary dependent clauses were
constantly being dropped out, I struggled with relations between they
them and then, I began with a relation between tenses that sometimes
almost seemed to do it. And I went on and on and then one day after
I had written a thousand pages, this was in 1908 I just did not go on
any more. %
I did however immediately begin again. I began A Long Gay Book,
that was going to be even longer than The Making of Americans and
was going to be even more complicated, but then something happened
in me and I said in Composition As Explanation, so then naturally it
was natural that one thing an enormously long thing was not every-
thing an enormously short thing was also not everything nor was it all
of it a continuous present thing nor was it always and always beginning
again.
And so this is The Making of Americans. A book one thousand pages
long, and I worked over it three years, and I hope this makes it a little
more understandable to you.
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 219
As I say I began A Long Gay Book and it was to be even longer than
The Making of Americans and it was to describe not only every pos-
sible kind of a human being, but every possible kind of pairs of human
beings and every possible threes and fours and fives of human beings
and every possible kind of crowds of human beings. And I was going
to do it as A Long Gay Book and at the same time I began several
shorter books which were to illustrate the Long Gay Book, one called
Many Many Women another Five, another Two and another G. M. P.,
Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein, but the chief book was to be the
Long Gay Book and that was in a kind of way to go on and to keep
going on and to go on before and it began in this way.
When they are very little just only a baby you can never tell
which one is to be a lady.
There are some when they feel it inside them that it has been with
them that there was once so very little of them, that they were a
baby, helpless and no conscious feeling in them, that they knew
nothing then when they were kissed and dandled and fixed by
others who knew them when they could know nothing inside them
or around them, some get from all this that once surely happened
to them to that which was then every bit that was then them, there
are some when they feel it later inside them that they were such
once and that was all that there was then of them, there are some
who have from such a knowing an uncertain curious kind of feeling
in them that their having been so little once and knowing nothing
makes it all a broken world for them that they have inside them,
kills for them the everlasting feeling: and they spend their life in
many ways, and always they are trying to make for themselves a
new everlasting feeling.
One way perhaps of winning is to make a little one to come
through them, little like the baby that once was all them and lost
them their everlasting feeling. Some can win from just the feeling,
the little one need not come, to give it to them.
And so always there is beginning and to some then a losing of
the everlasting feeling. Then they make a baby to make for them-
selves a new beginning and so win for themselves a new everlasting
feeling.*
* A Long Gay Book. (Plain Edition), Random House, Page 13.
220 THE GRADUAL MAKING OF
I knew while I was writing The Making of Americans that it was
possible to describe every kind there is of men and women.
I began to wonder if it was possible to describe the way every possible
kind of human being acted and felt in relation with any other kind of
human being and I thought if this could be done it would make A Long
Gay Book. It is naturally gayer describing what any one feels acts and
does in relation to any other one than to describe what they just are
what they are inside them.
And as I naturally found it livelier, I myself was becoming livelier
just then. One does you know, when one has come to the conclusion
that what is inside every one is not all there is of any one. I was, there
is no doubt about it, I was coming to be livelier in relation to myself
inside me and in relation to any one inside in them. This being livelier
inside me kept on increasing and so you see it was a natural thing that
as the Long Gay Book began, it did not go on. If it were to be really
lively would it go on. Does one if one is really lively and I was really
very lively then does one go on and does one if one is really very lively
does one content oneself with describing what is going on inside in one
and going on inside in every one in any one.
At any rate what happened is this and every one reading these things,
A Long Gay Book, Many Many Women and G. M. P. will see, that it
changed, it kept on changing, until at last it led to something entirely
different something very short and lively to the Portrait of Mabel Dodge
and the little book called Tender Buttons but all that I will talk about
later. To go back to The Making of Americans and A Long Gay Book.
One must not forget that although life seems long it is very short,
that although civilization seems long it is not so very long. If you think
about how many generations, granting that your grandfather to you
make a hundred years, if you think about that, it is extraordinary how
very short is the history of the world in which we live, the world which
is the world where there is a world for us. It is like the generations in
the Bible, they really do not take so very long. Now when you are be-
ginning realizing everything, this is a thing that is not confusing but is
a thing that as you might say is at one time very long and at the same
time not at all long. Twenty-five years roll around so quickly and in
writing they can do one of two things, they can either roll around more
or they can roll around less quickly.
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 221
In writing The Making of Americans they rolled around less quickly.
In writing A Long Gay Book, they did not roll around at all, and there-
fore it did not go on it led to Tender Buttons and many other things.
It may even have led to war but that is of no importance.
The Making of Americans rolled around very slowly, it was only
three years but they rolled around slowly and that is inevitable when
one conceives everything as being there inside in one. Of course every-
thing is always inside in one, that anybody knows but the kind of a one
that one is is all inside in one or it is partly not all inside in one. When
one is beginning to know everything, and that happens as it does hap-
pen, you all know that, when one is beginning to know everything
inside in one description strengthens it being all inside in one. That was
for me the whole of The Making of Americans, it was the strengthen-
ing the prolonging of the existing of everything being inside in one.
You may call that being younger you may not just as you feel about it
but what is important about it is, that if everything is all inside in one
then it takes longer to know it than when it is not so completely inside
in one.
Therefore it takes longer to know everything when everything is all
inside one than when it is not. Call it being young if you like, or call it
not including anything that is not everything. It does not make any
difference whether you are young or younger or older or very much
older. That does not make any difference because after all as I say
civilization is not very old if you think about it by hundreds of years and
realize that your grandfather to you can very much more than make a
hundred years if it happens right.
And so I say and I saw that a complete description of every kind of
human being that ever could or would be living is not such a very
extensive thing because after all it can be all contained inside in any one
and finally it can be done.
So then in writing The Making of Americans it was to me an enor-
mously long thing to do to describe every one and slowly it was not an
enormously long thing to do to describe every one. Because after all as
I say civilization is not a very long thing, twenty-five years roll around
so quickly and four times twenty-five years make a hundred years and
that makes a grandfather to a granddaughter. Everybody is interested
when that happens to any one, because it makes it long and it makes it
222 THE GRADUAL MAKING OF
short. And so and this is the thing that made the change a necessary
change from The Making of Americans to A Long Gay Book and then
to Tender Buttons.
* I will read you some few little things that will show this thing. A few
things out of A Long Gay Book that show how it changed, changed
from Making of Americans to Tender Buttons.
It is a simple thing to be quite certain that there are kinds in men
and women. It is a simple thing and then not any one has any worry-
ing to be doing about any one being any one. It is a simple thing to
be quite certain that each one is one being a kind of them and in
being that kind of a one is one being, doing, thmking, feeling, re-
membering and forgetting, loving, disliking, being angry, laughing,
eating, drinking, talking, sleeping, waking like all of them of that
kind of them. There are enough kinds in men and women so that
any one can be interested in that thing that there are kinds in men
and women.*
Vrais says good good, excellent. Vrais listens and when he listens
he says good good, excellent. Vrais listens and he being Vrais when
he has listened he says good good, excellent.
Vrais listens, he being Vrais, he listens.
Anything is two things. Vrais was nicely faithful. He had been
nicely faithful. Anything is two things.
He had been nicely faithful. In being one he was one who had he
been one continuing would not have been one continuing being
nicely faithful. He was one continuing, he was not continuing to be
nicely faithful. In continuing he was being one being the one who
was saying good good, excellent but in continuing he was needing
that he was believing that he was aspiring to be one continuing to
be able to be saying good good, excellent. He had been one saying
good good, excellent. He had been that one.*
If the accumulation of inexpediency produces the withdrawing of
the afternoon greeting then in the evening there is more preparation
and this will take away the paper that has been lying where it could
be seen. All the way that has the aging of a younger generation is
part of the way that resembles anything that is not disappearing.
* A Long Gay Book. — Page 23.
*A Long Gay Book — pa#e 53.
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 223
It is not alright as colors are existing in being accommodating. They
have a way that is identical/}"
Pardon the fretful autocrat who voices discontent. Pardon the col-
ored water-color which is burnt. Pardon the intoning of the heavy
way. Pardon the aristocrat who has not come to stay. Pardon the
abuse which was begun. Pardon the yellow egg which has run.
Pardon nothing yet, pardon what is wet, forget the opening now,
and close the door again.$
A private life is the long thick tree and the private life is the life
for me. A tree which is thick is a tree which is thick. A life which is
private is not what there is. All the times that come are the times I
sing, all the singing I sing are the tunes I sing. I sing and I sing
and the tunes I sing are what are tunes if they come and I sing. I sing
I sing.*
Suppose it did, suppose it did with a sheet and a shadow and a
silver set of water, suppose it did.f
When I was working with William James I completely learned one
thing, that science is continuously busy with the complete description
of something, with ultimately the complete description of anything with
ultimately the complete description of everything. If this can really be
done the complete description of everything then what else is there to
do. We may well say nothing, but and this is the thing that makes every-
thing continue to be anything, that after all what does happen is that
as relatively few people spend all their time describing anything and
they stop and so in the meantime as everything goes on somebody else
can always commence and go on. And so description is really unending.
When I began The Making of Americans I knew I really did know
that a complete description was a possible thing, and certainly a com-
plete description is a possible thing. But as it is a possible thing one can
stop continuing to describe this everything. That is where philosophy
comes in, it begins when one stops continuing describing everything.
And so this was the history of the writing of The Making of Amer-
icans and why I began A Long Gay Book. I said I would go on describ-
t A Long Gay Bool{ — Page 86.
%A Long Gay Book, — Page 100.
* A Long Gay Bool{ — Page 107.
^ A Long Gay Book, — Page 114.
224 THE GRADUAL MAKING OF
ing everything in A Long Gay Book, but as inevitably indeed really
one does stop describing everything being at last really convinced that a
description of everything is possible it was inevitable that I gradually
•stopped describing everything in A Long Gay Book.
Nevertheless it would be nice to really have described every kind there
is of men and women, and it really would not be very hard to do but it
would inevitably not be a Long Gay Book, but it would be a Making of
Americans.
But I do not want to begin again or go on with what was begun
because after all I know I really do know that it can be done and if it
can be done why do it, particularly as I say one does know that civiliza-
tion has after all not existed such a very long time if you count it by a
hundred years, and each time there has been civilization it has not
lasted such a long time if you count it by a hundred years, which makes
a period that can connect you with some other one.
I hope you like what I say.
And so The Making of Americans has been done. It must be remem-
bered that whether they are Chinamen or Americans there are the
same kinds in men and women and one can describe all the kinds of
them. This I might have done.
And so then I began The Long Gay Book. As soon as I began the
Long Gay Book I knew inevitably it would not go on to continue what
The Making of Americans had begun. And why not. Because as my
life was my life inside me but I was realizing beginning realizing that
everything described would not do any more than tell all I knew about
anything why should I tell all I knew about anything since after all I
did know all I knew about anything.
So then I said I would begin again. I would not know what I knew
about everything what I knew about anything.
And so the Long Gay Book little by little changed from a description
of any one of any one and everything there there was to be known about
any one, to what if not was not not to be not known about any one
about anything. And so it was necessary to let come what would happen
to come because after all knowledge is what you know but what is
happening is inevitably what is happening to come.
And so this brings us to other things.
In describing English literature I have explained that the twentieth
century was the century not of sentences as was the eighteenth not of
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 225
phrases as was the nineteenth but of paragraphs. And as I explained
paragraphs were inevitable because as the nineteenth century came to
its ending, phrases were no longer full of any meaning and the time had
come when a whole thing was all there was of anything. Series immedi-
ately before and after made everybody clearly understand this thing.
And so it was natural that in writing The Making of Americans I had
proceeded to enlarge my paragraphs so as to include everything. What
else could I do. In fact inevitably I made my sentences and my para-
graphs do the same thing, made them be one and the same thing. This
was inevitably because the nineteenth century having lived by phrases
really had lost the feeling of sentences, and before this in English litera-
ture paragraphs had never been an end in themselves and now in the
beginning of the twentieth century a whole thing, being what was as-
sembled from its parts was a whole thing and so it was a paragraph.
You will see that in The Making of Americans I did this thing, I made
a paragraph so much a whole thing that it included in itself as a whole
thing a whole sentence. That makes something clear to you does it not.
And this is what The Making of Americans was. Slowly it was not
enough to satisfy myself with a whole thing as a paragraph as a whole
thing and I will tell very much more about how that came about but
The Making of Americans really carried it as far as it could be carried
so I think the making a whole paragraph a whole thing.
Then at the same time is the question of time. The assembling of a
thing to make a whole thing and each one of these whole things is one
of a series, but beside this there is the important thing and the very
American thing that everybody knows who is an American just how
many seconds minutes or hours it is going to take to do a whole thing.
It is singularly a sense for combination within a conception of the
existence of a given space of time that makes the American thing the
American thing, and the sense of this space of time must be within the
whole thing as well as in the completed whole thing.
I felt this thing, I am an American and I felt this thing, and I made
a continuous effort to create this thing in every paragraph that I made
in The Making of Americans. And that is why after all this book is
an American book an essentially American book, because this thing is
ai> essentially American thing this sense of a space of time and what is
to be done within this space of time not in any way excepting in the
way that it is inevitable that there is this space of time and anybody who
226 THE GRADUAL MAKING OF
is an American feels what is inside this space of time and so well they
do what they do within this space of time, and so ultimately it is a thing
contained within. I wonder if I at all convey to you what I mean by this
thing. I will try to tell it in every way I can as I have in all the writing
that I have ever done. I am always trying to tell this thing that a space
of time is a natural thing for an American to always have inside them
as something in which they are continuously moving. Think of any-
thing, of cowboys, of movies, of detective stories, of anybody who goes
anywhere or stays at home and is an American and you will realize that
it is something strictly American to conceive a space that is filled with
moving, a space of time that is filled always filled with moving and my
first real effort to express this thing which is an American thing began
in writing The Making of Americans.
The Making of Americans
Written in 1906—08, this huge volume, which in its entirety runs to
nearly a thousand pages, was first published in 7925. It must be as long
as CLARISSA HARLOWE which Miss Stein has described as the "greatest
of all novels!9 There have been several different editions and parts of
the booJ^ have been translated and published in French. One of her
avowed aims in writing this "history" and A LONG GAY BOOK which
followed, was to describe every known type of human being, an ambi-
tion she permitted to languish when she discovered it really would be
possible for her to do it. Another aim, she asserts in NARRATION, was to
escape from inevitably feeling that everything had meaning as begin-
ning and middle and ending. In EVERYBODY'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY Gertrude
Stein has written: ''We had a mother and a father and I tell all about
that in THE MAKING OF AMERICANS which is a history of our family."
The author entrusted the manuscript of this worf^, in seven or eight
bound volumes, to her friend Mrs. Charles Knoblauch who brought it
to America. Mrs. Knoblauch in turn brought it to me and it remained
with me for several years, during which period I attempted with no
success to awaken the interest of one publisher after another. In the
actual eventual publication, alas, I was not involved.
Once an angry man dragged his father along the ground through his
own orchard. "Stop!" cried the groaning old man at last, "Stop! I did
not drag my father beyond this tree."
It is hard living down the tempers we are born with. We all begin
well, for in our youth there is nothing we are more intolerant of than
our own sins writ large in others and we fight them fiercely in our-
selves; but we grow old and we see that these our sins are of all sins the
really harmless ones to own, nay that they give a charm to any character,
and so our struggle with them dies away.
I am writing for myself and strangers. This is the only way that I can
do it. Everybody is a real one to me, everybody is like some one else too
to me. No one of them that I know can want to know it and so I write
for myself and strangers.
Every one is always busy with it, no one of them then ever want to
know it that every one looks like some one else and they see it. Mostly
every one dislikes to hear it. It is very important to me to always know
it, to always see it which one looks like others and to tell it. I write for
myself and strangers. I do this for my own sake and for the sake of
those who know I know it that they look like other ones, that they are
separate and yet always repeated. There are some who like it that I
know they are like many others and repeat it, there are many who never
can really like it.
There are many that I know and they know it. They are all of them
229
230 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
repeating and I hear it. I love it and I tell it, I love it and now I will
write it. This is now the history of the way some of them are it.
I write for myself and strangers. No one who knows me can like it.
At least they mostly do not like it that every one is of a kind of men and
women and I see it. I love it and I write it.
I want readers so strangers must do it. Mostly no one knowing me can
like it that I love it that every one is of a kind of men and women, that
always I am looking and comparing and classifying of them, always I
am seeing their repeating. Always more and more I love repeating, it
may be irritating to hear from them but always more and more I love it
of them. More and more I love it of them, the being in them, the mix-
ing in them, the repeating in them, the deciding the kind of them every
one is who has human being.
This is now a little of what I love and how I write it. Later there will
be much more of it.
There are many ways of making kinds of men and women. Now
there will be descriptions of every kind of way every one can be a kind
of men and women.
This is now a history of Martha Hersland. This is now a history of
Martha and of every one who came to be of her living.
There will then be soon much description of every way one can think
of men and women, in their beginning, in their middle living, and their
ending.
Every one then is an individual being. Every one then is like many
others always living, there are many ways of thinking of every one, this
is now a description of all of them. There must then be a whole history
of each one of them. There must then now be a description of all repeat-
ing. Now I will tell all the meaning to me in repeating, the loving there
is in me for repeating.
Every one is one inside them, every one reminds some one of some
other one who is or was or will be living. Every one has it to say of each
one he is like such a one I see it in him, every one has it to say of each
one she is like some one else I can tell by remembering. So it goes on
always in living, every one is always remembering some one who is re-
sembling to the one at whom they are then looking. So they go on re-
peating, every one is themselves inside them and every one is resembling
to others, and that is always interesting. There are many ways of mak-
ing kinds of men and women. In each way of making kinds of them
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 231
there is a different system of finding them resembling. Sometime there
will be here every way there can be of seeing kinds of men and women.
Sometime there will be then a complete history of each one. Every one
always is repeating the whole of them and so sometime some one who
sees'them will have a complete history of every one. Sometime some one
will know all the ways there are for people to be resembling, some one
sometime then will have a completed history of every one.
Soon now there will be a history of the way repeating comes out of
them comes out of men and women when they are young, when they
are children, they have then their own system of being resembling; this
will soon be a description of the men and women in beginning, the
being young in them, the being children.
There is then now and here the loving repetition, this is then, now
and here, a description of the loving of repetition and then there will be
a description of all the kinds of ways there can be seen to be kinds of
men and women. Then there will be realised the complete history of
every one, the fundamental character of every one, the bottom nature in
them, the mixtures in them, the strength and weakness of everything
they have inside them, the flavor of them, the meaning in them, the
being in them, and then you have a whole history then of each one.
Everything then they do in living is clear to the completed understand-
ing, their living, loving, eating, pleasing, smoking, thinking, scolding,
drinking, working, dancing, walking, talking, laughing, sleeping, every-
thing in them. There are whole beings then, they are themselves inside
them, repeating coining out of them makes a history of each one of them.
Always from the beginning there was to me all living as repeating.
This is now a description of my feeling. As I was saying listening to
repeating is often irritating, always repeating is all of living, everything
in a being is always repeating, more and more listening to repeating
gives to me completed understanding. Each one slowly comes to be a
whole one to me. Each one slowly comes to be a whole one in me. Soon
then it commences to sound through my ears and eyes and feelings the
repeating that is always coming out from each one, that is them, that
makes then slowly of each one of them a whole one. Repeating then
comes slowly then to be to one who has it to have loving repeating as
natural being comes to be a full sound telling all the being in each one
such a one is ever knowing. Sometimes it takes many years of knowing
some one before the repeating that is that one gets to be a steady sound-
232 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
ing to the hearing of one who has it as a natural being to love repeating
that slowly comes out from every one. Sometimes it takes many years of
knowing some one before the repeating in that one comes to be a clear
history of such a one. Natures sometimes are so mixed up in some one
that steady repeating in them is mix^ed up with changing. Soon then
there will be a completed history of each one. Sometimes it is difficult to
know it in some, for what these are saying is repeating in them is not the
real repeating of them, is not the complete repeating for them. Sometimes
many years of knowing some one pass before repeating of all being in
them comes out clearly from them. As I was saying it is often irritating
to listen to the repeating they are doing, always then that one that has it
as being to love repeating that is the whole history of each one, such a
one has it then that this irritation passes over into patient completed
understanding. Loving repeating is one way of being. This is now a de-
scription of such feeling.
There are many that I know and they know it. They are all of them
repeating and I hear it. I love it and I tell it. I love it and now I will
write it. This is now a history of my love of it. I hear it and I love it
and I write it. They repeat it. They live it and I see it and I hear it.
They live it and I hear it and I see it and I love it and now and always I
will write it. There are many kinds of men and women and I know it.
They repeat it and I hear it and I love it. This is now a history of the
way they do it. This is now a history of the way I love it.
Now I will tell of the meaning to me in repeating, of the loving there
is in me for repeating.
Sometime every one becomes a whole one to me. Sometime every
one has a completed history for me. Slowly each one is a whole one to
me, with some, all their living is passing before they are a whole one to
me. There is a completed history of them to me then when there is of
them a completed understanding of the bottom nature in them of the
nature or natures mixed up in them with the bottom nature of them or
separated in them. There is then a history of the things they say and do
and feel, and happen to them. There is then a history of the living in
them. Repeating is always in all of them. Repeating in them comes out
of them, slowly making clear to any one that looks closely at them the
nature and the natures mixed up in them. This sometime comes to be
clear in every one.
Often as I was saying repeating is very irritating to listen to from
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 233
them and then slowly it settles into a completed history o£ them. Repeat-
ing is a wonderful thing in living being. Sometime then the nature of
every one comes to be clear to some one listening to the repeating com-
ing out of each one.
This is then now to be a little description of the loving feeling for
understanding of the completed history of each one that comes to one
who listens always steadily to all repeating. This is the history then of
the loving feeling in me of repeating, the loving feeling in me for com-
pleted understanding of the completed history of every one as it slowly
comes out in every one as patiently and steadily I hear it and see it as
repeating in them. This is now a little a description of this loving feel-
ing. This is now a little a history of it from the beginning.
Always then I listen and come back again and again to listen to every
one. Always then I am thinking and feeling the repeating in every one.
Sometime then there will be for me a completed history of every one.
Every one is separate then and a kind of men and women.
Sometime it takes many years of knowing some one before the repeat-
ing in that one comes to be a clear history of such a one. Sometimes many
years of knowing some one pass before repeating of all being in such a
one comes out clearly from them, makes a completed understanding of
them by some one listening, watching, hearing all the repeating coming
out from such a one.
As I was saying loving listening, hearing always all repeating, com-
ing to completed understanding of each one is to some a natural way of
being. This is now more description of the feeling such a one has in them,
this is now more description of the way listening to repeating comes to
make complete understanding. This is now more description of the
way repeating slowly comes to make in each one a completed history of
them.
There are many that I know and always more and more I know it.
They are all of them repeating and I hear it. More and more I under-
stand it. Always more and more I hear it, always more and more it has
completed history in it.
Every one has their own being in them. Every one is of a kind of men
and women. Many have mixed up in them some kind of many kinds
of men and women. Slowly this comes clearly out from them in the
repeating that is always in all living. Slowly it comes out from them to
the most delicate gradation, to the gentlest flavor of them. Always it
234 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
comes out as repeating from them. Always it comes out as repeating, out
of them. Then to the complete understanding they keep on repeating
this, the whole of them and any one seeing them then can understand
them. This is a joy to any one loving repeating when in any one repeat-
ing steadily tells over and over again the history of the complete being
in them. This is a solid happy satisfaction to any one who has it in them
to love repeating and completed understanding.
As I was saying often for many years some one is baffling. The re-
peated hearing of them does not make the completed being they have
in them to any one. Sometimes many years pass in listening to repeating
in such a one and the being of them is not a completed history to any
one then listening to them. Sometimes then it comes out of them a
louder repeating that before was not clear to anybody's hearing and then
it is a completed being to some one listening to the repeating coming out
of such a one.
This is then now a description of loving repeating being in some. This
is then now a description of loving repeating being in one.
There are many that I know and they know it. They are all of them
repeating and I hear it. More and more I understand it. I love it and I
tell it. I love it and always I will tell it. They live it and I see it and
I hear it. They repeat it and I hear it and I see it, sometimes then always I
understand it, sometime then always there is a completed history of each
one by it, sometime then I will tell the completed history of each one as
by repeating I come to know it.
Every one always is repeating the whole of them. Every one is repeat-
ing the whole of them, such repeating is then always in them and so
sometime some one who sees them will have a complete understanding
of the whole of each one of them, will have a completed history of every
man and every woman they ever come to know in their living, every
man and eve^y woman who were or are or will be living whom such a
one can come to know in living.
This then is a history of many men and women, sometime there will
be a history of every one.
As I was saying every one always is repeating the whole of them. As
I was saying sometimes it takes many years of hearing the repeating in
one before the whole being is clear to the understanding of one who has
it as a being to love repeating, to know that always every one is repeat-
ing the whole of them.
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 235
This is then the way such a one, one who has it as a being to love re-
peating, to know that always every one is repeating the whole of them
comes to a completed understanding of any one. This is now a descrip-
tion of such a way of hearing repeating.
Every one always is repeating the whole of them. Many always listen
to all repeating that comes to them in their living. Some have it as being
to love the repeating that is always in every one coming out from them
as a whole of them. This is now a description of such a one and the com-
pleted understanding of each one who is repeating in such a one's living.
Every one always is repeating the whole of them. Always, one having
loving repeating to getting completed understanding must have in them
an open feeling, a sense for all the slightest variations in repeating, must
never lose themselves so in the solid steadiness of all repeating that they
do not hear the slightest variation. If they get deadened by the steady
pounding of repeating they will not learn from each one even though
each one always is repeating the whole of them they will not learn the
completed history of them, they will not know the being really in them.
As I was saying every one always is repeating the whole of them. As
I was saying sometimes it takes many years of listening, seeing, living,
feeling, loving the repeating there is in some before one comes to a
completed understanding. This is now a description, of such a way of
hearing, seeing, feeling, living, loving, repetition.
Mostly every one loves some one's repeating. Mostly every one then,
comes to know then the being of some one by loving the repeating in
them, the repeating coming out of them. There are some who love every-
body's repeating, this is now a description of such loving in one.
Mostly every one loves some one's repeating. Every one always is re-
peating the whole of them. This is now a history of getting completed
understanding by loving repeating in every one the repeating that always
is coming out of them as a complete history of them. This is now a
description of learning to listen to all repeating that every one always is
making of the whole of them.
Now I will tell of the meaning to me in repeating, of the loving there
is in me for repeating.
Always from the beginning there was to me all living as repeating.
This is now a description of loving repeating as a being. This is now a
history of learning to listen to repeating to come to a completed under-
standing.
236 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
To go on. now giving all of the description of how repeating comes to
have meaning, how it forms itself, how one must distinguish the differ-
ent meanings in repeating. Sometimes it is very hard to understand the
meaning of repeating. Sometime there will be a complete history of
some one having loving repeating as being, to a completed understand-
ing. Now there will be a little description of such a one.
Sometime then there will be a complete history of all repeating to com-
pleted understanding. Sometime then there will be a complete history of
every one who ever was or is or will be living.
Sometime there will be a complete history of some one having loving
repeating to a completed understanding as being. Sometime then there
will be a complete history of many women and. many men.
Now there is to be some description of some one having loving repeat-
ing to a completed understanding as being. Then there will be a com-
plete history of some.
More and more then there will be a history of many men and many
women from their beginning to their ending, as being babies and chil-
dren and growing young men and growing young women and young
grown men and young grown women and men and women in their
middle living and growing old men and growing old women and old
men and old women.
More and more then there will be histories of all the kinds there are
of men and women.
This is now a little description of having loving repeating as being.
This is now a little description of one having loving repeating as being.
Loving repeating is one way of being. This is now a description of
such being. Loving repeating is always in children. Loving repeating is
in a way earth feeling. Some children have loving repeating for little
things and story-telling, some have it as a more bottom being. Slowly
this comes out in them in all their children being, in their eating, play-
ing, crying, and laughing. Loving repeating is then in a way earth feel-
ing. This is very strong in some. This is very strong in many, in children
and in old age being. This is very strong in many in all ways of humorous
being, this is very strong in some from their beginning to their ending.
This is now some description of such being in one.
As I was saying loving repeating being is in a way earthy being. In
some it is repeating that gives to them always a solid feeling of being.
In some children there is more feeling in repeating eating and playing,
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 237
in some in story-telling and their feeling. More and more in living as
growing young men and women and grown young men and women and
men and women in their middle living, more and more there comes to
be in them differences in loving repeating in different kinds of men and
women, there comes to be in some more and in some less loving repeat-
ing. Loving repeating in some is a going on always in them of earthy
being, in some it is the way to completed understanding. Loving repeat-
ing then in some is their natural way of complete being. This is now
some description of one.
There is then always repeating in all living. There is then in each
one always repeating their whole being, the whole nature in them. Much
loving repeating has to be in a being so that that one can listen to all the
repeating in every one. Almost every one loves all repeating in some one.
This is now some description of loving repeating, all repeating, in every
one.
To begin again with the children. To begin again with the repeating
being in them. To begin again with the loving repeating being in them.
As I was saying some children have it in them to love repeating in them
of eating, of angry feeling in them, many of them have loving repeating
for story-telling in them, many of them have loving repeating being
in them for any kind of being funny, in making jokes or teasing, many
of them having loving repeating being in them in all kinds of playing.
Mostly every one when they are children, mostly every one has then lov-
ing repeating being strongly in them, some have it more some have it
less in them and this comes out more and more in them as they come to
be young adolescents in their being and then grown young men and
grown young women.
To begin again then with children in their having loving repeating
being. Mostly all children have loving repeating as being in them but
some have it much more and some have it much less in them. Loving
repeating being is more of that kind of being that has resisting as its
natural way of fighting than of that kind of being that has attacking as
its natural way of winning. But this is a very complicated question. I
know very much about these ways of being in men and women. I know
it and can say it, it is a very complex question and I do not know yet
the whole of it, so I can not yet say all 1 4cnow of it.
As I was saying all little children have in them mostly very much
loving repeating being. As they grow into bigger children some have it
238 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
more some have it less in them. Some have it in them more and more
as a conscious feeling. Many of them do not have it in them more and
more as a conscious feeling. Mostly when they are growing to be young
men and women they have not it in them to have loving repeating being
in them as a conscious feeling.
Mostly every one has not it in them as a conscious feeling as a young
grown man or young grown woman. Some have it in them, loving re-
peating feeling as steadily developing, this is now a history of one.
Many men and many women never have it in them the conscious
feeling of loving repeating. Many men and many women never have
it in them until old age weakening is in them, a consciousness of re-
peating. Many have it in them all their living as a conscious feeling as a
humorous way of being in them. Some have it in them, the conscious-
ness of always repeating the whole of them as a serious obligation. There
are many many ways then of having repeating as conscious feeling, of
having loving repeating as a bottom being, of having loving repeating
being as a conscious feeling.
As I was saying mostly all children have in them loving repeating
being as important in them to them and to every one around them.
Mostly growing young men and growing young women have to them-
selves very little loving repeating being, they do not have it to each other
then most of them, they have it to older ones then as older ones have it
to them loving repeating being, not loving repeating being but repeat-
ing as the way of being in them, repeating of the whole of them as
coming every minute from them.
In the middle living of men and women there are very different ways
of feeling to repeating, some have more and more in them loving re-
peating as a conscious feeling, some have less and less liking in them
for the repeating in, to them, of mostly every one. Mostly every one
has a loving feeling for repeating in some one. Some have not any such
loving even in the repeating going on inside themselves then, not even
for any one they are loving.
Some then have always growing in them more and more loving feel-
ing for the repeating in every one. Many have not any loving for repeat-
ing in many of those around them.
There are then many ways of feeling in one about repeating. There
are many ways of knowing repeating when one sees and hears and feels
it in every one.
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 239
Loving repeating then is important being in some. This is now some
description of the importance of loving repeating being in one.
Some find it interesting to find inside them repeating in them of some
one they have known or some relation to them coming out in them, some
never have any such feeling in them, some have not any liking for such
being in them. Some like to see such being in others around them but
not in themselves inside them. There are many ways of feeling in one
about all these kinds of repeating. Sometime there will be written the
history of all of them.
To begin again then with some description of the meaning of loving
repeating being when it is strongly in a man or in a woman, when it is
in them their way of understanding everything in living and there are
very many always living of such being. This is now again a beginning of
a little description of it in one.
Repeating of the whole of them is then always in every one. There
are different stages in being, there is being babies and children and then
growing young men or women and grown young men or women and
men or women in middle living and in growing old and in ending.
There are many kinds of men and women and soon now there will be a
beginning of a history of all of them who ever were or are or will be
living. There will be then here written a history of some of them. To
begin again then with loving repeating being as a bottom nature in
some. To begin again with the developing of it in one.
As I was saying children have it in them to have strongly loving re-
peating being as a conscious feeling in so far as they can be said to have
such a thing in them. It gives to them a solid feeling of knowing they
are safe in living. With growing it comes to be more in some, it comes
to be less in others of them. Mostly there is very little conscious loving
repeating feeling in growing young men and women.
In the beginning then, in remembering, repeating was strongly in
the feeling of one, in the feeling of many, in the feeling of most of them
who have it to Jiave strongly in them their earthy feeling of being part
of the solid dirt around them. This is one kind of being. This is mostly
of one kind of being, of slow-minded resisting fighting being. This is
now a little a description of one.
Slowly then some go on living, they may be fairly quick in learning,
some of such of them seem very quick and impetuous in learning and in
acting but such learning has for such of them very little meaning, it is
240 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
the slow repeating resisting inside them that has meaning for them.
Now there will be a little a description of loving repeating being in one
of such of them.
The kinds and ways of repeating, of attacking and resisting in dif-
ferent kinds of men and women, the practical, the emotional, the sensi-
tive, the every kind of being in every one who ever was or is or will be
living, I know so much about all of them, many of them are very clear
in kinds of men and women, in individual men and women, I know
them so well inside them, repeating in them has so much meaning to
knowing, more and more I know all there is of all being, more and
more I know it in all the ways it is in them and comes out of them, some-
time there will be a history of every one, sometime all history of all men
and women will be inside some one.
Now there will be a little description of the coming to be history of
all men and women, in some one. This is then to be a little history of
such a one. This is then now to be a little description of loving repeating
being in one.
Almost every one has it in them in their beginning to have loving
repeating being strongly in them. Some of them have attacking being
as the bottom nature in them, some of them have resisting being as the
bottom nature in them. Some of both these kinds of them have more
or less in all their living loving repeating being in them, it works dif-
ferently in them to come out of them in these two kinds of them. Later
there will be much description of the way it comes out from them and is
in them in the different kinds of them. Now there is to be a little descrip-
tion of it in one having resisting as the way of winning fighting. This is
now some description of such a one having loving repeating being de-
veloping into completed understanding. Now to slowly begin.
The relation of learning to being, of thinking to feeling, of realisation
to emotion, all these and many others are very complicated questions.
Sometimes there will be much description of them with the kinds of men
and women with being in them, with mixtures in them, that complicates
them. There will sometime be a history of every one. This is a sure thing.
Now again to begin. The relation of learning and thinking to being,
of feeling to realising is a complicated question. There will now be very
little talking of such way of being. As I was saying some have it in them
to have slowly resisting as their natural way of being can have learning
and thinking come quickly enough in them. This is then not bottom
' THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 241
being in them. It is bottom being in some of such of them. This is very
clear now in my knowing. Now to begin again with it as telling.
Some then who are of that kind of being who have slow resisting
being as their way to wisdom have it in them to be quick in learning and
in thinking and in acting. As I was saying in some this is not of the
bottom nature in them, in some it is bottom nature in them for the slow
resisting winning bottom to them was not put in in the making of them,
in some it is in them but dull and not mixing in their living, in some it is
not sensitive to action in their living, it is there in them going on inside
them not connecting on with the rest of them. This is not just talking,
this all has real meaning. These are all then of a kind of men and women
who have resisting being as the real wisdom in them. In some of such of
them they seem to be winning by acting by attacking they live so very
successfully in living but nevertheless they are of the kind of them that
have resisting winning as their real way of fighting although never in
their living does this act in them. Careful listening to the whole of them
always repeating shows this in them, what kind they are of men and
women.
To begin again. This is now some description of one having loving
repeating as a way to wisdom, having slowly resisting winning as the
bottom being. As I was saying learning in such a one and thinking about
everything can be quick enough in the beginning.
The important thing then in knowing the bottom nature in any one
is the way their real being slowly comes to be them, the whole of them
comes to be repeating in them.
As I was saying some can have quick learning and nervous attacking
or one or the other in them with slow resisting being in them as their
natural way of winning. There is every kind of mixing. There is every
degree of intensification. There is every degree of hastening the resist-
ing into more rapid realisation. There is every degree of hurrying. In
short there are all degrees of intensification and rapidity in motion and
mixing and disguising and yet the kind he is each one, the kind she is
each one, comes to be clear in the repeating that more and more steadily
makes them clear to any one looking hard at them. These kinds then
are existing, the independent dependent, the dependent independent,
the one with attacking as the way of winning, the other with resisting
as the way of wisdom for them. I know then this is true of every one that
each one is of one or the other kind of these two kinds of them. I know
242 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
it is in them, I know many more things about these two kinds of them.
Slowly they come to be clearer in every one, sometime perhaps it will be
clear to every one. Sometime perhaps some one will have completely
in them the history of every one of everything in every one and the de-
gree and kind and way of being of everything in each one in them from
their beginning to their ending and coming out of them.
This is then a beginning of the way of knowing everything in every
one, of knowing the complete history of each one who ever is or was or
will be living. This is then a little description of the winning of so much
wisdom.
As I was saying the important thing is having loving repeating being,
that is the beginning of learning the complete history of every one. That
being must always be in such a one, one who has it in them sometime to
have in them the completed history of every one they ever can hear of as
having being.
There are so many ways of beginning this description, and now once
more to make a beginning.
Always repeating is all of living, everything that is being is always
repeating, more and more listening to repeating gives to me completed
understanding. Each one then slowly comes to be a whole one to me,
each one slowly comes to be a whole one in me, slowly it sounds louder
and louder and louder inside me through my ears and eyes and feelings
and the talking there is always in me the repeating that is the whole
of each one I come to know around, and each one of them then comes
to be a whole one to me, comes to be a whole one in me. Loving repeat-
ing is one way of being. This is now a description of such being.
Always from the beginning there was to me all living as repeating.
This was not in me then a conscious being. Always more and more
this is in me developing to a completed being. This is now again a begin-
ning of a little description of such being.
In their beginning as children every one has in them loving repeating
being. This is for them then their natural being. Later in conscious being
some have much in them of loving repeating being, some have in them
almost nothing of such feeling. There are then these two kinds of them.
This is then one way of thinking of them.
There are two kinds of men and women, those who have in them
resisting as their way of winning those who have in them attacking as
their way of winning fighting, there are many kinds, many very many
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 243
kinds of each of these two kinds of men and women, sometime there will
be written a description of all the kinds of them. Now this division is
accepted by me and I will now give a little more description of loving
repeating being and then go on to describing how it comes to slowly give
to me completed understanding, loving repeating being always in me
acting, of this one and that one, and then there will be some description
of resembling coming to be clear by looking at the repeating in men and
women and then there will be more history of Martha Hersland and the
being coming out of her all her living and the being in every one she
came to know in living.
Always then from the beginning there was in me always increasing
as a conscious feeling loving repeating being, learning to know repeating
in every one, hearing the whole being of any one always repeating in that
one every minute of their living. There was then always in me as a
bottom nature to me an earthy, resisting slow understanding, loving
repeating being. As I was saying this has nothing to do with ordinary
learning, in a way with ordinary living. This will be clearer later in this
description.
Many have loving repeating being in them, many never come to know
it of them, many never have it as a conscious feeling, many have in it a
restful satisfaction. Some have in it always more and more understand-
ing, many have in it very little enlarging understanding. There is every
kind of way of having loving repeating being as a bottom. It is very
clear to me and to my feeling, it is very slow in developing, it is very
important to make it clear now in writing, it must be done now with a
slow description. To begin again then with it in my feeling, to begin
again then to tell of the meaning to me in all repeating, of the loving
there is in me for repeating.
Sometime every one becomes a whole one to me. For many years this
was just forming in me. Now sometimes it takes many years for some
one to be a whole one to me. For many years loving repeating was a
bottom to me, I was never thinking then of the meaning of it in me, it
had nothing then much to do with the learning, the talking, the think-
ing, nor the living then in me. There was for many years a learning and
talking and questioning in me and not listening to repeating in every
one around me. Then slowly loving repeating being came to be a con-
scious feeling in me. Slowly then every cne sometime became a whole
one to me.
244 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
Now I will tell of the meaning in me of repeating, of the loving repeat-
ing being there is now always in me.
In loving repeating being then to completed understanding there
must always be a feeling for all changing, a feeling for living being that
is always in repeating. This is now again a beginning of a description of
my feeling.
Always then I am thinking and feeling the repeating in each one as
I know them. Always then slowly each one comes to be a whole one to
me. As I was saying loving repeating in every one, hearing always all
repeating, coming to completed understanding of each one is to me a
natural way of being.
There are many that I know and always more and more I know it.
They are all of them repeating and I hear it. They are all of them living
and I know it. More and more I understand it, always more and more
it has completed history in it.
Every one has their own being in them. Every one is of a kind of men
and women. Always more and more I know the whole history of each
one. This is now a little a description of such knowing in me. This is now
a little a description of beginning of hearing repeating all around me.
As I was saying learning, thinking, living in the beginning of being
men and women often has in it very little of real being. Real being,
the bottom nature, often does not then in the beginning do very loud
repeating. Learning, thinking, talking, living, often then is not of the
real bottom being. Some are this way all their living. Some slowly come
to be repeating louder and more clearly the bottom being that makes
them. Listening to repeating, knowing being in every one who ever was
or is or will be living slowly came to be in me a louder and louder pound-
ing. Now I have it to my feeling to feel all living, to be always listening
to the slightest changing, to have each one come to be a whole one to
me from the repeating in each one that sometime I come to be under-
standing. Listening to repeating is often irritating, listening to repeat-
ing can be dulling, always repeating is all of living, everything in a being
is always repeating, always more and more listening to repeating gives
to me completed understanding. Each one slowly comes to be a whole
one to me. Each one slowly comes to be a whole one in me.
In the beginning then learning and thinking and talking and feeling
and loving and working in me mostly was not bottom being in me.
Slowly it came out in me the feeling for living in repeating that now by
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 245
listening and watching and feeling everything coming out of each one
and always repeating the whole one gives to me completed understand-
ing.
There was a time when I was questioning, always asking, when I
was talking, wondering, there was a time when I was feeling, thinking
and all the time then I did not know repeating, I did not see or hear or
feel repeating. There was a long time then when there was nothing in
me using the bottom loving repeating being that now leads me to know-
ing. Then I was attacking, questioning, wondering, thinking, always at
the bottom was loving repeating being, that was not then there to my
conscious being. Sometime there will be written a long history of such
a beginning.
Always then there was there a recognition of the thing always re-
peating, the being in each one, and always then thinking, feeling, talk-
ing, living, was not of this real being. Slowly I came to hear repeating.
More and more then I came to listen, now always and always I listen and
always now each one comes to be a whole one in me.
Sometimes in listening to a conversation which is very important to
two men, to two women, to two men and women, sometime then it is
a wonderful thing to see how each one always is repeating everything
they are saying and each time in repeating, what each one is saying has
more meaning to each one of them and so they go on and on and on and
on repeating and always to some one listening, repeating is a very won-
derful thing. There are many of them who do not live in each repeating
each repeating coming out of them but always repeating is interesting.
Repeating is what I am loving. Sometimes there is in me a sad feeling
for all the repeating no one loving repeating is hearing, it is like any
beauty that no one is seeing, it is a lovely thing, always some one should
be knowing the meaning in the repeating always coming out of women
and of men, the repeating of the being in them. So then.
Every one is a brute in her way or his way to some one, every one
has some kind of sensitiveness in them.
246 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
Some feel some kinds of things others feel other kinds of things.
Mostly every one feels some kinds of things. The way some things touch
some and do not touch other ones and kinds in men and women then
I will now begin to think a little bit about describing. To begin then.
I am thinking it is very interesting the relation of the kind of things
that touch men and women with the kind of bottom nature in them, the
kind of being they have in them in every way in them, the way they react
to things which may be different from the way they feel them.
I am thinking very much of feeling things in men and women. As
I was saying every one is a brute in her way or his way to some one, every
one has some kind of sensitiveness in them. Mostly every one has some
inner way of feeling in them, almost every one has some way of reacting
to stimulus in them. This is not always the same thing. These things
have many complications in them.
I am beginning now a little a description of three women, Miss Dou-
nor, Miss Charles and Mrs. Redfern. I am beginning now a little a real-
isation of the way each one of them is in her way a brute to some one,
each one has in her way a kind of sensitiveness in being. This is now
some description of each one of the three of them Miss Dounor, Miss
Charles and Mrs. Redfern.
In listening to a conversation, as I was saying, repeating of each one
and the gradual rising and falling and rising again of realisation is very
interesting. This is now some description of the three women and as I
was saying of the sensitiveness in each one of them to some things and
the insensitiveness to other things and the bottom nature in them and
the kinds of repeating in them and the bottom nature and the other na-
tures mixed with the bottom nature in each one of them.
Sensitiveness to something, understanding anything, feeling any-
thing, that is very interesting to understand in each one. How much,
when and where and how and when not and where not and how not
they are feeling, thinking, understanding. To begin again then with
feeling anything.
Mostly every one is a brute in her way or his way to some one, mostly
every one has some kind of sensitiveness in them.
Mostly every one can have some kind of feeling in them, very many
men and very many women can have some understanding in them of
some kind of thing by the kind of being sensitive to some kind of im-
pression that they have in them.
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 247
Some kinds of men and women have a way of having sensation from
some things and other men and women have it in them to be able to be
impressionable to other kinds of things. Some men and some women
have very much of sensitive being in them for the kind of thing they can
be feeling, they can then be very loving, or very trembly from the abun-
dant delicate fear in them, or very attacking from the intensity of the
feeling in them, or very mystic in their absorption of feeling which is
then all of them. There are some men and women having in them very
much weakness as the bottom in them and watery anxious feeling, and
sometimes nervous anxious feeling then in them and sometimes stub-
born feeling then in them. There are some who have vague or vacant
being as the bottom in them and it is very hard to know with such ones
of them what feeling they have ever in them and there are some with
almost intermittent being in them and it is very hard to tell with such
of them what kind of thing gives to them a feeling, what kind of feeling
they ever have really in them. As I was saying mostly every one some-
times feels something, some one, is understanding something, some one,
has some kind of sensitiveness in them to something, to some one, mostly
every one.
As I was saying some men and some women have very much of sen-
sitive being in them for something that can give to them real feeling.
They can then, some of these of them, when they are filled full then of
such feeling, they can then be completely loving, completely believing,
they can then have a trembling awed being in them, they can have then
abundant trembly feeling in them, they can then be so full up then with
the feeling in them that they are a full thing and action has no place then
in them, they are completely then a feeling, there are then men and
women, there are then women and men who have then this finely sensi-
tive completed feeling that is sometime all them and perhaps Cora Dou-
nor was one of such of them. Perhaps she was one of them and was such
a one in loving Phillip Redfern. Perhaps that was the whole being she
had in her then.
Each one as I am saying has it in them to feel more or less, sometime,
something, almost certainly each one sometime has some capacity for
more or less feeling something. Some have in them always and very
little feeling, some have some feeling and much nervous being always in
them, some have as a bottom to them very much weakness and eagerness
together then and they have then such of them some sensitiveness in
248 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
them to things coming to them but often after they are then full up with
nervous vibrations and then nothing can really touch them and then they
can have in them nervous vibratory movement in them, anxious feeling
in them and sometimes stubborn feeling then in them and then nothing
can touch them and they are all this being then this nervous vibratory
quivering and perhaps Mrs. Redfern was such a one Mrs. Redfern who
had been Martha Hersland and was married now to Phillip Redfern and
had come to Farnham and had there seen Phillip Redfern come to know
Miss Dounor and had been then warned to take care of him by the dean
of Farnham Miss Charles. She never knew then, Mrs. Redfern never
knew then that she would not ever again have him, have Redfern again.
This never could come to be real knowledge in her. She was always then
and later always working at something to have him again and that was
there always in her to the end of him and of her. There will be a little
more description of her written in the history of the ending of the living
in her father, in the history of the later living of her brother Alfred Hers-
land who now just when her trouble was commencing was just then
marrying Julia Dehning, in the history of her brother David Hersland
her younger brother. More description of her will be part of the history
of the ending of the existing of the Hersland family. There will be very
much history of this ending of all of them of the Hersland family written
later.
The dean Miss Charles was very different frotn either Miss Dounor
or Mrs. Redfern. She had it in her to have her own way of feeling things
touching her, mostly there was in her less reactive than self-directive
action in her than there was in the two women who were just then con-
cerning her, Miss Dounor and Mrs. Redfern.
It is hard to know it of any one whether they are enjoying anything,
whether they are knowing they are giving pain to some one, whether
they were planning that thing. It is hard to know such things in any
one when they are telling when they are not telling to any one what they
know inside them. It is hard telling it of any one whether they are en-
joying a thing, whether they know that they are hurting some one,
whether they have been planning the acting they have been doing. It
is hard telling it of any one whether they are enjoying anything, whether
they know that they are hurting any one, whether they have been plan-
ning the acting they are doing. It is very hard then to know anything
of the being in any one, it is hard then to know the being in many men
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 249
and in many women, it is hard then to know the being and the feeling in
any man or in any woman. It is hard to know it if they tell you all they
know of it. It is hard to know it if they do not tell you what they know
of it in it. Miss Cora Dounor then could do some planning, could do some
hurting with it, that is certain. This is perhaps surprising to some, read-
ing. To begin then with her feeling and her being and her acting.
As I am saying she had it in her to be compounded of beautiful sen-
sitive being, of being able to be in a state of being completely possessed
by a wonderful feeling of loving and that was then the whole of the
being that was being then in her and then it came to be in her that she
could be hurting first Miss Charles and then Mrs. Redfern, then Miss
Charles and Mrs. Redfern by planning. This is then the being in her
this that I am now with very much complication slowly realising, not
yet completely realising, not yet completely ready to be completely de-
scribing, beginning now to be describing. The dean Miss Charles was
a very different person, she was of the dependent independent kind of
them. To understand the being in her there must be now a little realisa-
tion of the way beginning is in very many persons having in them a
nature that is self growing and a nature that is reacting to stimulation
and that have it in them to have these two natures acting in not very
great harmony inside them. Mrs. Redfern as I was saying in a long de-
scription that has been already written was a very different kind of
person from Miss Dounor and Miss Charles. These are then the three
of them that were struggling and each of them had in them their own
ways of being brutal, hurting some one, had each of them their own
way of being sensitive to things and people near them.
Sometimes I am almost despairing. Yes it is very hard, almost im-
possible I am feeling now in my despairing feeling to have completely
a realising of the being in any one, when they are telling it when they are
not telling it, it is so very very hard to know it completely in one the being
in one. I know the being in Miss Dounor that I am beginning describing,
I know the being in Miss Charles that I am soon going to be beginning
describing, I know the being in Mrs. Redfern, I have been describing the
being in that one. I know the being in each one of these three of them
and I am almost despairing for I am doubting if I am knowing it
poignantly enough to be really knowing it, to be really knowing the
being in any one of the three of them. Always now I am despairing. It
is a very melancholy feeling I have in me now I am despairing about
250 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
really knowing the complete being of any one of each one of these three
of them Miss Dounor and Miss Charles and Mrs. Redfern.
Miss Dounor as I was saying was to Redfern the most complete thing
4 of gentleness and intelligence he could think of ever seeing in anybody
who was living, Miss Dounor had it to have in her the complete thing
of gentleness, of beauty in sensitiveness, in completeness of intelligent
sensitiveness in completely loving. She was the complete thing then of
gentleness and sensitiveness and intelligence and she had it as a com-
plete thing gentleness and sensitiveness and intelligence in completely
loving. It was in her complete in loving, complete in creative loving, it
was then completed being, it was then completely in her completely
loving Phillip Redfern. And always to the ending ~of his living in all the
other loving and other troubling and the other enjoying of men and
women in him he was faithful to the thing she had been, was and would
be to him the completed incarnation of gentleness and sensitiveness and
intelligence, gentle intelligence and intelligent sensitiveness and all to
the point of completely creative loving that was to him the supreme
thing in all living. Miss Dounor was then completely what Redfern
found her to him, she was of them of the independent dependent kind
of them who have sensitive being to the point of creative being, of attack-
ing, of creative loving, creative feeling, of sometimes creative thinking
and writing. She was then such a one and completely then this one and
she had in her completely sensitive being to the point of attacking. She
could have in her a planning of attacking and this came to be in her from
the completeness of sensitive creative loving that she had then in her
then when she was knowing Phillip Redfern.
Perhaps she was not of this kind of them. Perhaps she was at the
bottom, of the resisting kind of them. I think she was of the resisting
kind of them and so she needed to own the one she needed for loving,
so she could do resisting to planning making an attacking. I am almost
despairing, yes a little I am realising the being in Miss Dounor and in
Miss Charles and Mrs. Redfern, but I am really almost despairing, I
have really in me a very very melancholy feeling, a very melancholy
being, I am really then despairing.
Miss Charles was of the kind of men and women that I speak of and
have spoken of as the dependent independent kind of them. I will now
tell a little about what I mean by self growing activity in such of them
and reactive activity in such of them. As I was saying a long time back
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 251
when I was describing the dependent independent kind of them, reac-
tion is not poignant in them unless it enters into them the stimulation
is lost in them and so sets it, the mass, in motion, it is not as in the other
kind of them who have it to have a reactive emotion to be as poignant
as a sensation as is the case in the independent dependent kind of them.
Miss Charles then as I was saying was of the kind of them where reac-
tion to have meaning must be a slow thing, but she had quick reactions
as mostly all of them of this kind of them have them and those were in
her mostly attacking being as is very common in those having in them
dependent independent being.
It is so very confusing that I am beginning to have in me despairing
melancholy feeling. Mrs. Redfern as I was saying was of the independent
dependent kind of them and being in her was never really attacking, it
was mostly never active into forward movement it was incessantly in
action as being in a state of most continual nervous agitation. They
were then very different in their being the three of them Miss Dounor
and Miss Charles and Mrs. Redfern and they had each one of them
their own way of hurting the other ones in their then living, of having
in them sensitiveness to something.
It is hard to know it of any one whether they are enjoying anything,
whether they are feeling something, whether they are knowing they
are giving pain to some one, whether they were planning that thing. It
is a very difficult thing to know such things in any one any one is know-
ing, very difficult even when they are telling that one all the feeling they
have in them, a very difficult thing when they are not telling anything.
It is a very difficult thing to tell it of any one whether they are enjoying
a thing, whether they know that they are hurting some one, whether
they have been planning the acting they have been doing. It is a very
difficult thing to know anything of the being in any one, it is a very diffi-
cult thing to know the being in any one if they tell you all that they
themselves know of it as they live it, if they themselves tell you nothing
at all about it. It is a very difficult thing to know the being in any one.
It is a very difficult thing to know whether any one is feeling a thing,
enjoying a thing, knowing that they are hurting some one, planning
that thing, planning anything they are doing in their living. It is a diffi-
cult thing to know the being in any one if that one tells to any one com-
pletely all that that one has in them of telling, it is a very difficult thing
to know the being in any one if they are not telling any one anything
252 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
that they can have as telling in them. It is a very difficult thing to know
it of any one the being in them, it is a very difficult thing to tell it of any
one what they are feeling, whether they are enjoying, whether they are
knowing that they are hurting some one, whether they had been plan-
ning doing that thing. It is a very difficult thing to know these things in
anyone, it is a difficult thing if that one is telling everything they can
be telling, if that one is telling nothing. It is certainly a difficult thing to
know it of any one whether they have in them a kind of feeling, whether
they have in them at some time any realisation that they are hurting
some one, whether they had planned doing that thing.
Miss Dounor had come to live with Miss Charles, they had come to
know each other in the way that it was natural for each one of them to
know the other one of them. The two of them then had come to know
Mrs. Redfern. They both had come then each in their way to know her
and to feel her and to have an opinion of her.
Miss Dounor had this being in her. She could have some planning
in her, this came from the completeness of pride in her. This now comes
to be clearer, that she had as completely pride in her as sensitiveness and
intelligent gentleness inside her. She had in her pride as sensitive, as
intelligent, as complete as the loving being in her when she was loving
Redfern. She had in her pride as sensitive, as intelligent, as complete
as the being ever in her. She had always had in her a pride as complete,
as intelligent, as sensitive as the complete being of her. She had in her
a pride as intelligent, as sensitive as complete as the being in her. This
made it that she had planning in her, this made attacking sometimes in
her. This never made any action in her toward a lover, this gave to her
a power of planning and this was in her and she could be wonderfully
punishing some around her. This could be turned into melodrama if
the intelligence in her had not been so gentle and so fine in her, this in
many who are like her is a melodrama. In her it made her able to do
some planning against some to punish them not for interfering but for
existing and so claiming something that entirely belonged to her. What
was in Redfern to him himself a weakness in him was to her a heroic
thing to be defending. Pride was in her then as delicate, as gentle, as
intelligent as sensitive as complete as the being in her. This is now more
description of her. This is now some description of the way she could
be hurting another, how she could be feeling another, how she could
have planning in her, how she did have planning in her. This is now
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 253
more description of her and the being in her. I am now a little under-
standing the whole of her, I have in me still now a little melancholy
feeling.
Miss Charles was of the dependent independent kind of them as I
was saying.
Everybody is perfectly right. Everybody has their own being in them.
Some say it of themselves in their living, I am as I am and I know I
will never be changing. Mostly every one is perfectly right in living.
That is a very pleasant feeling to be having about every one in the
living of every one. Mostly not very many have that pleasant feeling
that everybody is as they are and they will not be very much changing
in them and everybody is right in their living. It is a very pleasant feel-
ing, knowing every one is as they are and everybody is right in their
living. Miss Dounor was as she was and she was not ever changing, Miss
Charles was as she was and was not ever changing. Mrs. Redfern was as
she was and always she wanted to be changing and always she was
trying.
Miss Dounor as I was saying was as she was all her living and was not
really ever changing and she was very right in her living and she was very
complete in her being and her pride was as complete in her as her being
and so she could be planning her conviction of how far Mrs. Redfern
should not go in presumption, how far Miss Charles should not go in
her interfering, how completely Phillip Redfern was a saint in living and
in her devotion and she could carry out all this in its completion. Mrs.
Redfern had no understanding in desiring. Philip Redfern always
should give her always would give her always would give to every one
.anything she, anything they were ever asking. This was the being in him.
Asking was not presumption in Mrs. Redfern, desiring was presump-
tion and Miss Dounor could then have in her a planning or perfect at-
tacking. Always Mrs. Redfern should have anything she could ever ask
of anyone, that was a very certain thing. Always Mrs. Redfern should
have, would have from Mr. Redfern anything she was ever asking of
him. Always then to them to Mr. Redfern and to Miss Donour then, al-
ways then Mrs. Redfern had everything from Redfern that she ever
could ask of him. This was then a very certain thing. Always then Mrs.
Redfern had the right to ask anything and always she would have any-
thing she should ever be asking of Phillip Redfern. She had in her, Mrs.
Redfern, no intelligence, no understanding, in desiring, Miss Donour
254 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
had in her then a perfect power of planning the attacking that should
keep Mrs. Redfern in her place of condemnation for Mrs. Redfern had
not in her any intelligence in desiring, she had a right to anything she
ever could be asking and she would have it given to her then whenever
she asked for anything, Mrs. Redfern was never changing in her being,
always she was trying, always she was without understanding in her
desiring, always Miss Donour could completely plan an attacking when
the time came for such action to restrain Mrs. Redfern in her unintelli-
gent desiring.
Miss Dounor was then perfectly right in her being. She was never
changing, she was completely loving, she was completely understanding
desiring, she was complete in the pride of attacking in her complete sen-
sitive, completely intelligent, completely gentle being, completely under-
stood desiring. Mrs. Redfern had no understanding in desiring. Mrs.
Redfern always was trying to change the being she had in her to find
some way of having intelligent desiring in her, always she would have
from Redfern anything she could anything she should anything she
would ever ask him to be giving to her. That was the being in her.
There were three of them then, Miss Charles, Miss Dounor and Mrs.
Redfern.
Miss Charles was then not permitted by Miss Donour to interfere
with the being inside her, ever at any time in their living. Miss Charles
was never asking anything of any one. Miss Charles was then one of
the dependent independent kind of them. Miss Charles was then one
having general moral and special moral aspirations and general unmoral
desires and ambitious and special unmoral ways of carrying them into
realisation and there was never inside her any contradiction and this
is very common in very many kinds of them of men and women and
later in the living of Alfred Hersland there will be so very much discus-
sion of this matter and now there will be a little explanation of the way
it acts in the kind of men and women of which Miss Charles was one.
Some have it in them some having in them a being like Miss Charles
some of such of them have it in them to have it in the beginning very
strongly in them that they have generalised moral aspirations, strongly
detailed moral struggles in them, and then slowly in them comes out in
them that they are vigorous egotistic sensual natures, loving being, living,
writing, reading, eating, drinking, loving, bullying, teasing, finding out
everything and slowly they get courage in them to feel the being in them
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 255
they have in them, slowly they get courage in them to live the being they
have in them. Some like Miss Charles keep on having tranquilly inside
them equally strongly in them moral aspiration general and detailed in
them, egotistic expedient domineering as a general aspiration and as
detailed living in them. Some are always struggling, some of this kind
of them, some get to have in them that the moral fervor in them in the
general and specific expression of them get to be the whole of them,
some get to have it all fairly mixed up in them. This is now a little de-
scription of how one of them when she was a young one one of the first
kind of them who slowly came to have the courage of feeling and then
living the real being came to have the struggle as a beginning. Later then
came the courage to be more certain of the real being. This is now a little
piece of such a description of such beginning experiencing.
As I was saying in many of such ones there is the slow reacting, slow
expressing being that comes more and more in their living to determine
them. There are in many of such ones aspirations and convictions due
to quick reactions to others around them, to books they are reading, to
the family tradition, to the lack of articulation of the meaning of the
being in them that makes them need then to be filled full with other reac-
tions in them so that they will then have something. Some then spend
all their living struggling to adjust the being that slowly comes to active
stirring in them to the aspirations they had in them, some want to create
their aspirations from the being in them and they have not the courage
in them. It is a wonderful thing how much courage it takes even to
buy a clock you are very much liking when it is a kind of one every one
thinks only a servant should be owning. It is very wonderful how much
courage it takes to buy bright colored handkerchiefs when every one
having good taste uses white ones or pale colored ones, when a bright
colored one gives you so much pleasure you suffer always at not having
them. It is very hard to have the courage of your being in you, in clocks,
in handkerchiefs, in aspirations, in liking things that are low, in any-
thing. It is a very difficult thing to get the courage to buy the kind of
clock or handkerchiefs you are loving when every one thinks it is a silly
thing. It takes very much courage to do anything connected with your
being unless it is a very serious thing. In some, expressing their being
needs courage, for, foolish ways to every one else, in them. It is a very
difficult thing to have courage to buy clocks and handkerchiefs you are
liking, you are seriously liking and everybody thinks then you are joking.
256 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
It is a very difficult thing to have courage for something no one is think-
ing is a serious thing.
As I was saying Miss Charles had in her what I am calling de-
pendent independent being, that is being that is not in its quicker re-
acting poignant in its feeling, not having emotion then have the keen-
ness of sensation as those having independent dependent being have it
in them. Miss Charles was then such a one.
This is then a very common thing as I am saying. Miss Charles had
in her this being. As I am saying there are two ways then of acting in a
being like those I have been just describing. The acting from the per-
sonality slowly developing, the acting from the organised reaction to
contemporary ideals, tradition, education and nted of having, before
the developing of their own being, completed aspiration. Often these
keep on as they did in Miss Charles and no one is knowing which is the
stronger way of being in such a one. Sometimes there is as I was saying
in the beginning very much struggling and then slowly the personality
comes to action and that one drops away the early filling, sometimes the
early filling comes to be the later filling and in such a one then there is
not any changing. This is quite interesting and will be always more and
more dwelt upon. This then was the being in Miss Charles and this
was the meaning of her action with Miss Dounor and Mrs. Redfern and
Mr. Redfern that I have been describing.
There will be now a very little more description of the being in them,
of the virtuous feeling in them, of the religious feeling in them, of the
sensitiveness in them, of the worldly feeling in them, of the succeeding
and failing in them, in each one of the three of them, Miss Donour, Miss
Charles and Mrs. Redfern.
Every one has their own being in them. Every one is right in their
own living. This is a pleasant feeling to have in one about every one.
This makes every one very interesting to one having such a feeling in
them. Every one is right in their living. Each one has her or his own
being in her or in him. Each one is right in the living in her or in him.
Each one of these three of them were right in their living. This is now a
little more description of the being in each one of them.
It is a very difficult thing to know it of any one whether they are
enjoying anything, whether they are knowing they are giving pain to
some one, whether they were planning that thing. It is a very difficult
thing to know it of any one what is the kind of thing they are sensitive to
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 257
in living, what is the bottom nature in them, whether they will in living
be mostly succeeding or mostly failing. It is hard to know such things in
any one when they are telling everything they have in them, when they
are not telling to any one anything of what they know inside them. It
is a very difficult thing the telling it of any one whether they are enjoying
a thing, whether they know that they are hurting some one, whether they
have been planning the acting they are doing. It is a very difficult thing
then to know anything of the being in any one, it is hard then to know
the being in many men and in many women, it is a very difficult thing
then to know the being and the feeling in any man or in any woman. It
is hard to know it if they tell you all they know of it. It is hard to know
it if they do not tell you what they know of it in it. Nevertheless now
almost I am understanding the being in the three of them Miss Charles,
Miss Dounor and Mrs. Redfern. There will be now a very little more
description of the being in them, of the virtuous feeling in them of the
religious feeling in them, of the sensitiveness in them, of the worldly
feeling in them, of the succeeding and failure in them, in each one of the
three of them Miss Charles, Miss Dounor and Mrs. Redfern.
Miss Cora Dounor could do some planning, could do some attacking
with it, that is certain. This is perhaps surprising to some reading. To
begin then with her feeling and her being and her doing, and her suc-
ceeding and her failing.
She was then complete in her loving, she had complete understanding
in desiring in all her relation with Phillip Redfern, she had completely
then the realisation later in her that Phillip Redfern was saintly and she
had then in her the complete possession of her adoration, the complete
understanding and possession of her adoration of the saintly being in
him, and this was then in her a complete succeeding in being and in liv-
ing. This was not exactly virtuous or religious being in her this was com-
plete understanding desiring and complete intelligent being In her and
this was in her succeeding in her being and in her living. This is very
certain. This was in her succeeding in her being and in her living. She
had then in her complete understanding in desiring, she had then com-
pletely in her completed intelligence in adoration and this was complete
being in her and it was a complete possession of her and by her and this
was then completely succeeding in living. This is now very certain.
She had then complete succeeding in her living as I was saying, she
had in her complete pride in her and this could be in her strong sensitive
258 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
attacking but this was not completely a succeeding in her living. As I
was saying Mrs. Redfern had in her no intelligence whatever in desiring,
this was in her then presumption in her to Miss Dounor, not the things
for which Mrs. Redfern was asking, Mrs. Redfern had the right to ask for
anything or everything, it was desiring in her that was a thing Miss
Dounor could rightly condemn in her and later she made it very certain
to every one that Mrs. Redfern had no intelligence no understanding in
desiring and then at last Mrs. Redfern reproached her and so then in a
sense Miss Dounor was then failing in her being completely proud inside
her. Mrs. Redfern attempting to attack her, attacking her even though
failing in attacking was a failing of the complete intelligent pride in the
understanding sensitive planning attacking pride in Miss Dounor and so
Miss Dounor -in her living was not then completely succeeding. This is
certain. There was then complete succeeding in Miss Dounor in her lov-
ing in her completely understanding desiring, in her complete intelli-
gence of adoration, in the completion of the being then in her, there was
in her then some failing that Mrs. Redfern could attack her with going
on attempting desiring. This is all very certain.
Miss Dounor held Miss Charles from really touching her real being,
she did not hold her from really touching Redfern's being. She never
recognised this failing in herself inside her but it was a failing of the com-
pleteness of pride in her and later much later when Redfern was no
longer existing in living it made them separate from one another, later
it in spots made Miss Dounor bitter. Miss Charles then was not succeed-
ing in keeping Miss Dounor with her, she was winning by not then hav-
ing any remembrance in her of the trouble she had had with her/Miss
Dounor then was succeeding and failing in some ways as I have been say-
ing. There was real succeeding in her as I have been saying, there was
real failing in her as I have been saying. This is all very certain. This has
been some description of the being in Miss Dounor and of her failing
and of her succeeding.
Miss Charles was of the kind of them the kind of men and women I
know very well in living. I know very well all the varieties of this kind
of them. In each kind of them they are nice ones they are those that are
not such nice ones, they are pleasant ones and they are unpleasant ones,
they are those having that kind of being in them so lightly it hardly then
makes them that kind of them, there are then some o£ them having that
being in them that kind of being in them so concentratedly it is a won-
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 259
derful thing to see them, to see a kind of being so complete in one man or
in one woman. Miss Charles was of a kind of being I know very well in
living, very well indeed in living, I know very well all the varieties of the
kind of being that Miss Charles was in living in all the very many mil-
lions ever living having had or having that kind of being in them. Some
then of a kind of being are nice ones, some of that kind of them are not
very nice ones, some of that kind of them are not at all nice ones. Some
of a kind of them are nice ones of that kind of them and then they have
a mixture in them of other kinds of being in them and then that one is
not a nice one though that one has a nice kind of one kind of being in
that one. That often makes one a very puzzling one to every one. There
are then all kinds of ways of being one kind of them in men and women.
Some are a nice kind of a kind of them, and some are not a nice kind of
that same kind of them. Sometimes being in one who is a nice one of a
kind of them and then has other things mixed up in them is very per-
plexing and sometimes no one in such a one ever comes to an under-
standing of that one. Well then that is true then that of each kind of them
there are nice ones and nice enough ones and not very nice ones, and not
at all nice ones and very horrid ones. This can be in them with any
strength or weakness of their kind of being in them, it is from the mixing
and the accenting and relation of parts of their kind of nature in them.
There is one thing very certain of each kind of them of each kind there
is of men and women there arc nice ones and then there are not at all nice
ones of them. And about some mostly every one is agreeing and about
some there is very much disagreeing and there are very many ways of
feeling every one and every one has their own being in them. Yes every
one has their own being in them and yes every one is right in living their
own being in them and this is a very difficult thing to be realising and it
is a very pleasant thing to have inside one when it comes to be really in
one.
Miss Charles was of a kind of men and women I know very well in all
the kind of ways of being they have in them. Miss Charles was one of the
independent dependent kind of them. Miss Charles was one who was
herself a very strong one in her being and it slowly came to be more and
more filling inside her. Miss Charles was one who had it in her to have
reaction in her to influences around her when she was younger, to desires
in her, to tradition and mob action and to very many things then and
they made moral aspiration in her they made a reformer of her, they
260 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
made an aggressive attacking person of her and when she was a young
one all this then almost completely filled her She was as I was saying of
the dependent independent kind in men and women and resisting, slow
realisation was the bottom way of feeling and of fighting and of under-
standing in her. This came then slowly to be stronger in her, this made
then of her one that could be feeling and understanding brilliant men
and brilliant women, brilliant and sensitive men and brilliant and sensi-
tive women, made her feel them then and choose them then, then when
her resisting sensitive understanding had come to be more completely the
whole filling in her, then when slow steady detailed domination came to
be then really filling then inside her, then when reforming attacking was
changed in her to the personal being that then was mostly all the filling
in her. It was never all the filling in her always she had in her a little of
the special reforming attacking which was reaction in her, quick reaction
to things and conditions around her and always she had very much in her
of the generalised moral attacking conviction that came from the gener-
alisation of her attacking and that made a righteous moral person of her
and this is a very common thing and later there will be endless discussing
of the meaning of this kind of moral being in all kinds of men and
women, the generalised conviction and the relation of it to the concrete
living, feeling, being in them, but this will come later in the beginning of
the understanding of Alfred Hersland that will pretty soon now com-
mence to be written.
Miss Charles was of the dependent independent kind of them. These
have it in them then to have when they have quick reaction in them
that is not a stirring from the depths of them these have it very often
that this in them is a violent attacking, often continuous bragging, often
moral reforming conviction, often nervous action in them, often inces-
sant talking, incessant action, incessant attacking in them and this is in
those of them that are the pure thing of dependent independent being
and attacking is not their way at all of winning fighting. There are some
who have in them resisting being and they have in them attacking being
as another nature in them but that is a different thing from this thing
lhat I am now describing, from the being in Miss Charles. Miss Charles
was completely dependent independent being, attacking was not her way
of winning fighting, it was resisting as I was saying in telling what she
did to win her fighting for Miss Dounor with Redfern. That was then
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 261
when she was a young one when she was no longer a young one, when
her own being was almost completely then her filling, when there was
in her the generalised moral emotion that came from the reaction that
rilled her a good deal in her young living, reaction that made attacking
being then in her, in her who had in her to have resisting as her way of
winning fighting, that was then what gave to her then attempting domi-
nating every one by attacking and this is a very common thing in those
having in them dependent independent being, this is a very common
thing in them in their young living when their real way of winning
fighting has not come yet to be in them. I am not saying that those hav-
ing in them dependent independent being cannot have in them religion
and moral or reforming passion as the expression of the being in them,
there are very many of them who have it in them as I was saying, the
old man Hissen had it in him and there are very many of them of this
kind of them and there are very many of many various kinds of them of
the dependent independent kind of them that have religious or virtuous
or moral or reforming passion in them as the whole expression of the
being in them but these express this then by resisting fighting which is
their way of winning fighting. As I was saying there are many having in
them dependent independent being, and there are some of them who
have it in them only when they are younger ones and some have it in
them very strongly in them up to their ending, there are very many of
them who have much attacking of quick reacting, much attacking in
bragging, in being quickly certain of everything, of being very quick in
judging everything and these then some of them are mostly all filled up
with this kind of reacting attacking in them which is not in them their
real way of winning fighting. This is a very important thing to know in
men and women, a very important thing to know in them in knowing
them, in judging of the power in them of succeeding or of failing in their
living. The independent dependent kind in men and women can have
quick reaction that is completely poignant, that is attacking, in them,
that is their real way of winning fighting. Those having in them depend-
ent independent nature in them have not real power in quick resisting,
in attacking fighting, many of them have this filling them all their liv-
ing, many of them have this filling them in their young living when their
own way of winning fighting is not yet developed in them enough to
fill them, some have almost nothing of this kind of acting in them some
262 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
of the dependent independent kind of them. All this is very important,
very very important, sometime there will be very very much description
of every kind of being in every kind of men and women.
Miss Charles was of the kind of them the kind of men and women I
know very well in living. I know very well all the varieties of this kind
of them. Some of each kind there is of men and women are very nice
ones of their kind of them, some of each kind there is of men and women
are not nice ones at all of their kind of them. Miss Charles was not a
very nice one, she was not a not nice one at all of her kind of them. Being
nice or not a nice kind of one, a pleasant or unpleasant kind of one was
not in her an important thing. This is a very certain thing. She was as I
was saying in her younger living aggressive in hex detailed and general-
ised conviction of morality and reformation and equalisation. Later in
her living she went on in the direction she had been going but her
methods then were from the being in her and that then mostly entirely
filled her. That made her control everything, every one near her by
steady resisting pressure and that was then the way of winning in her.
Everything near her, every one near her, every detail of everything was
then more or less completely owned by her. She was of the kind of them
who own the thing they need for loving. Later as I was saying Miss
Dounor left her, Miss Charles had a little owned Redfern almost and
Miss Dounor many years later left her and Miss Charles went on always
to her ending completely owning the college of Farnham.
There has been now enough description of Miss Charles. There has
been enough description of Miss Dounor. There has been enough de-
scription of Miss Dounor and of Miss Charles. There will be now a very
little more description of Mrs. Redfern.
At the time of the ending of the living of the Redfern's at Farnham,
Alfred Hersland was just coming to his marrying of Julia Dehning. The
Redferns after the ending of their living at the college of Farnham never
lived anywhere together again. Mrs. Redfern never understood this thing.
Always she was expecting it to begin again their living together until
after the complete ending of being in Redfern. That made her certain
then that they would never live together again.
After the ending of their Farnham living the Redferns never lived any-
where together again. Mrs. Redfern never understood this thing. She
never knew that she would not ever again have him. This never could
come to be real knowledge in her and she was always working at some-
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 263
thing to have him again and that was there always in her to the end of
him and of her. First she was travelling and studying and then she was
working to make some women understand something and many laughed
at her and always she was full of desiring and always she was never
understanding in desiring. When there was the end of her living with
Redfern her brother Alfred was just coming to his marrying Julia Dehn-
ing. Martha was then travelling and studying and then she came back
to be with her father and her mother was weakening then and later she
was dead and Mr. Hersland lost his great fortune and Martha then took
care of him. There will be now a little more description of her and then
of her with him. There will be a little more description of her written in
the history of the ending of the living in her father, in the history of the
later living of her brother Alfred Hersland, in the history of her brother
David Hersland. More description of her will be part of the history of
the ending of the existing of the Hersland family. There will be very
much history of this ending of all of them of the Hersland family written
later.
There will be now a little more description written of her and of her
living with her father when she came back to the family living back out
of her trouble after the ending of the living in Phillip Redfern.
After the ending of the Redfern's living at Farnham the two of them,
Mr. and Mrs. Redfern never lived anywhere together again. Mrs. Red-
fern never understood this thing. Always she was expecting it to begin
again, their living together and always she was studying and preparing
herself to be a companion to him in intellectual living. Always then she
was studying and striving and travelling and working. And then he was
dead and then she knew they would not live together again. Then she
was certain of this thing.
That was her living then until he was dead and she went back to the
ten acre place where then her father and mother were living and her
mother was weakening then and a little while later then she died there
and Martha finished her living staying with her father who had then
lost his great fortune.
264 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
Disillusionment in living is finding that no one can really ever be agree-
ing with you completely in anything. Disillusionment then in living that
gives to very many then melancholy feeling, some despairing feeling,
some resignation, some fairly cheerful beginning and some a forgetting
and continuing and some a dreary trickling weeping some violent attack-
ing and some a letting themselves do anything, disillusion then is really
finding, really realising, really being certain that no one really can com-
pletely agree with you in anything, that, as is very certain, not, those
fighting beside you or living completely with you or anybody, really, can
really be believing anything completely that you are believing. Really
realising this thing, completely realising this thing is the disillusionment
in living is the beginning of being an old man or -an old woman is being
no longer a young one no longer a young man or a young woman no
longer a growing older young man or growing older young woman.
This is then what every one always has been meaning by living bringing
disillusion. This is the real thing of disillusion that no one, not any one
really is believing, seeing, understanding, thinking anything as you are
thinking, believing, seeing, understanding such a thing. This is then
what disillusion is from living and slowly then after failing again and
again in changing some one, after finding that some one that has been
fighting for something, that every one that has been fighting something
beside you for a long time that each one of them splits oft from you
somewhere and you must join on with new ones or go on all alone then
or be a disillusioned one who is not any longer then a young one. This
is then disillusionment in living and sometime in the history of David
Hersland the younger son in the Hersland family living then in a part
of Gossols where they alone of rich people were living there will be com-
pletely a history of the disillusionment of such a realising and the dying
then of that one, of young David Hersland then.
This is then complete disillusionment in living, the complete realisa-
tion that no one can believe as you do about anything, so not really any
single one and to some as I am saying this is a sad thing, to mostly every
one it is sometime a shocking thing, sometimes a shocking thing, some-
time a real shock to them, to mostly every one a thing that only very
slowly with constant repetition is really a complete certain thing inside
to give to them the being that is no longer in them really young being.
This is then the real meaning of not being any longer a young one in
living, the complete realising that not any one really can believe what
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 265
any other one is believing and some there are, enough of them, who
never have completely such a realisation, they are always hoping to find
her or him, they are always changing her or him to fit them, they are
always looking, they are always forgetting failing or explaining it by
something, they are always going on and on in trying. There are a very
great many of them who are this way to their ending. There are a
very great many who are this way almost to their very ending, there
are a great many men and women who have sometime in them in their
living complete disillusion.
There is then as I am saying complete disillusion in living, the realis-
ing, completely realising that not any one, not one fighting for the same
thinking and believing as the other, not any one has the same believing
in her or in him that any other one has in them and it comes then some-
time to most every one to be realising with feeling this thing and then
they often stop having friendly feeling and then often they begin again
but it is then a different thing between them, they are old then and not
young then in their feeling.
Young ones sometimes think they have it in them, this thing, some
young ones kill themselves then, stop living then, this is often happen-
ing, young ones sometimes, very often even, think they have in them this
thing but they do not have it in them, mostly not any young one, as a
complete realisation, this thing, they have it in them and it is sometimes,
very often then an agony to them, some of them kill themselves or are
killed then, but really mostly not any of them have really realised the
thing, they may be dead from this thing, they have not realised the thing,
it has been an awful agony in them, they have not really grasped the
thing as having general human meaning, it has been a shock to them,
it may perhaps even have killed completely very completely some of
them, mostly then a young one has not really such a thing in them, this
is pretty nearly certain, later there will be much description of disillusion-
ment in the being of David Hersland who was always in his living as
I was saying trying to be certain from clay to day in his living what there
was in living that could make it for him a completely necessary thing.
This is then a very little description of feeling disillusionment in liv-
ing. There is this thing then there is the moment and a very complete
moment to those that have had it when something they have bought or
made or loved or are is a thing that they are afraid, almost certain, very
fearful that no one will think it a nice thing and then some one likes
266 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
that thing and this then is a very wonderful feeling to know that some
one really appreciates the thing. This is a very wonderful thing, this is
a thing which I will now be illustrating.
Disillusionment in living is the finding out nobody agrees with you
not those that are and were fighting with you. Disillusionment in living
is the finding out nobody agrees with you not those that are fighting for
you. Complete disillusionment is when you realise that no one can for
they can't change. The amount they agree is important to you until the
amount they do not agree with you is completely realised by you. Then
you say you will write for yourself and strangers, you will be for yourself
and strangers and this then makes an old man or an old woman of you.
This is then one thing, another thing is the perfect joy of finding some
one, any one really liking something you are liking, making, doing,
being. This is another thing and a very pleasant thing, sometimes not a
pleasant thing at all. That depends on many things, on some thing.
It is a very strange feeling when one is loving a clock that is to every
one of your class of living an ugly and a foolish one and one really likes
such a thing and likes it very much and liking it is a serious thing, or one
likes a colored handkerchief that is very gay and every one of your kind
of living thinks it a very ugly or a foolish thing and thinks you like it be-
cause it is a funny thing to like it and you like it with a serious feeling,
or you like eating something and liking it is a childish thing to every
one or you like something that is a dirty thing and no one can really like
that thing or you write a book and while you write it you are ashamed
for every one must think you are a silly or a crazy one and yet you write
it and you are ashamed, you know you will be laughed at or pitied by
every one and you have a queer feeling and you are not very certain and
you go on writing. Then some one says yes to it, to something you are
liking, or doing or making and then never again can you have com-
pletely such a feeling of being afraid and ashamed that you had then
when you were writing or liking the thing and not any one had said yes
about the thing. In a way it is a very difficult thing to like anything, to
do anything. You can never have again either about something you have
done or about something any one else has done the same complete feel-
ing if some one else besides the first one sees it, some other one if you have
made it, yourself if you have understood something, you can never again
have the complete feeling of recognition that you have then. You can
have very many kinds of feelings you can only alone and with the first
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 267
one have the perfect feeling of not being almost completely filled with
being ashamed and afraid to show something to like something with a
really serious feeling.
I have not been very clear in this telling, it will be clearer in the
description of master and schools in living and in working, and in paint-
ing and in writing and in everything.
It is a very queer thing this not agreeing with any one. It would seen!
that where we are each of us always telling and repeating and explain-
ing and doing it again and again that some one would really understand
what the other one is always repeating. But in loving, in working, in
everything it is always the same thing. In loving some one is jealous,
really jealous and it would seem an impossible thing to the one not un-
derstanding that the other one could have about such a thing a jealous
feeling and they have it and they suffer and they weep and sorrow in it
and the other one cannot believe it, they cannot believe the other one
can really mean it and sometime the other one perhaps comes to realise
it that the other one can really suffer in it and then later that one tries
to reassure the other one the one that is then suffering about that thing
and the other one the one that is receiving such reassuring says then, did
you think I ever could believe this thing, no I have no fear of such a thing,
and it is all puzzling, to have one kind of feeling, a jealous feeling, and
not have a fear in them that the other one does not want them, it is a
very mixing thing and over and over again when you are certain it is
a whole one some one, one must begin again and again and the only
thing that is a help to one is that there is really so little fundamental
changing in any one and always every one is repeating big pieces of them
and so sometimes perhaps some one will know something and I certainly
would like very much to be that one and so now to begin.
All this leads again to kinds in men and women. This then will be
soon now a description of difference in men and women morally and
intellectually in them between concrete acting, thinking and feeling in
them and generalised acting, thinking and feeling in them.
Many women and men have a completely sure feeling in them. Many
men and women have certain feeling with something inside them.
Many have a very certain feeling about something inside them. Many
need company for it, this is very common, many need a measure for it,
this will need explaining, some need drama to support it, some need
lying to help it, some are not letting their right hand know what their
268 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
left hand is doing with it, some love it, some hate it, some never are very
certain they really have it, some only think they love it, some like the
feeling of loving it they would have if they could have it. Some have a
feeling they would have it if they had their life to live over again and
they sigh about it. Certain feeling in men and women is very interesting.
As I was saying in many there is the slow reacting, slow expressing
being that comes more and more in their living to determine them. There
are in many of such ones aspirations and convictions due to quick reac-
tions to others around them, to books they are reading, to the family
tradition, to the spirit of the age in educating, in believing, to the lack
of power of articulating the being in them that makes them need then to
be filled full with other reactions in them so that they will then have
something. Some of such of them spend all their living in adjusting the
being that comes to active condition inside them in their living to the
being they have come to be in living from all being that has been affect-
ing them in all their living, some of such of them want a little in them
to create their living from the being inside them and they have not the
power in them for this thing, they go on then living the being of every
one that has been making them. It is a wonderful thing how very much
it has to be in one, how it needs to be so strongly in one anything, how
much it needs to be in one anything so that thing is a thing that comes
then to be done, it is a wonderful thing how very much it needs to be in
one anything, any little any big thing so that that thing will be done by
that one. It is a wonderful thing as I was saying and I am now repeating,
it is a wonderful thing how much a thing needs to be in one as a desire
in them how much courage any one must have in them to be doing any-
thing if they are a first one, if it is something no one is thinking is a seri-
ous thing, if it is the buying of a clock one is very much liking and every-
body is thinking it an ugly or a foolish one and the one wanting it has
for it a serious feeling and no one can think that one is buying it for any-
thing but as doing a funny thing. It is a hard thing to be loving something
with a serious feeling and every one is thinking that only a servant girl
could be loving such a thing, it is a hard thing then to buy that thing.
It is a very wonderful thing how much courage it takes to buy and use
them and like them bright colored handkerchiefs when every one having
good taste is using white ones or pale colored ones when a bright colored
one gives to the one buying them so much pleasure that that one suffers
always at not having them when that one has not bought one of such of
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 269
them. It is a very difficult thing to have your being in you so that you
will be doing something, anything you are wanting, having something
anything you are wanting when you have plenty of money for the buy-
ing, in clocks in handkerchiefs, so that you will be thinking, feeling any-
thing that you are needing feeling, thinking, so that you will be having
aspirations that are really of a thing filling you with meaning, so that
you will be having really in you in liking a real feeling of satisfaction.
It is very hard to know what you are liking, whether you are not really
liking something that is a low thing to yourself then, it is a very difficult
thing to get the courage to buy the kind of clock or handkerchiefs you
are loving when every one thinks it is a silly thing, when every one
thinks you are doing it for the joke of the thing. It is hard then to know
whether you are really loving that thing. It takes very much courage to
do anything connected with your being that is not a serious thing. It
takes courage to be doing a serious thing that is connected with one's
being that is certain. In some, expressing their being needs courage, in
foolish ways, ways that are foolish ones to every one else, in them. It is
a very difficult thing to have courage to buy clocks and handkerchiefs
you are loving, you are seriously appreciating, with which you have very
seriously pleasure with enjoying and everybody is thinking then that you
are joking. It is a very difficult thing to have courage for that which no
one is thinking is a serious thing.
Some have a measure in living and some do not have any measure to
determine them. Many in their living are determined by the measure of
some one, they are to themselves to be like some one or very near to
what that one is for them, they are like some one or are something like
some one, they have then a measure by which they can determine what
they are to be, to do in living. Such then are always followers in living,
many of such of them have their own being in them, all of such of them
have some being in them, all of such of them have a measure that deter-
mines them, they are themselves inside them, they need only come very
near doing, being some certain thing which is established already as a
standard for them by some one who did not have any standard to make
her or him some one and that one is a master and the others having them-
selves inside them and such a one as a measure for them are schoolmen,
and now there will be very little description of these things in men and
women for it is something that is important in the being in David
Hersland the second son. The important thing now to be discussing is
270 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
concrete and abstract aspiration, concrete and generalised action in many
men and women of very many kinds of them and now there will be a
beginning of discussing the feeling in each one of being a bad one, of
being a good one, the relation of aspiration and action, of generalised
and concrete aspiration and action.
It happens very often that a man has it in him, that a man does some-
thing, that he does it very often, that he does many things, when he is
a young one and an older one and an old one. It happens very often that
a man does something, that a man has something in him and he does a
thing again and again in his living. There was a man who was always
writing to his daughter that she should not do things that were wrong
that would disgrace him, she should not do such things and in every let-
ter that he wrote to her he told her she should not do such things, that he
was her father and was giving good moral advice to her and always he
wrote to her in every letter that she should not do things that she should
not do anything that would disgrace him. He wrote this in every letter
he wrote to her, he wrote very nicely to her, he wrote often enough to
her and in every letter he wrote to her that she should not do anything
that was a disgraceful thing for her to be doing and then once she wrote
back to him that he had not any right to write moral things in letters
to her, that he had taught her that he had shown her that he had com-
menced in her the doing the things things that would disgrace her and he
had said then when he had begun with her he had said he did it so that
when she was older she could take care of herself with those who wished
to make her do things that were wicked things and he would teach her
and she would be stronger than such girls who had not any way of know-
ing better, and she wrote this letter and her father got the letter and he
was a paralytic always after, it was a shock to him getting such a letter,
he kept saying over and over again that his daughter was trying to kill
him and now she had done it and at the time he got the letter he was
sitting by the fire and he threw the letter in the fire and his wife asked
him what was the matter and he said it is Edith she is killing me, what,
is she disgracing us said the mother, no said the father, she is killing me
and that was all he said then of the matter and he never wrote another
letter.
It happens very often that a man has it in him, that a man does some-
thing, that he does it very often that he does many things, when he
is a young man, when he is an old man, when he is an older man. Some
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 271
kind of young men do things because they are so good then they want
every one to be wise enough to take care of themselves and so they do
some things to them. This is very common and these then are very often
good enough kind of young men who are very good men in their living.
There will soon be a little description of one of them. There are then
very many men and there is then from the generalised virtue and con-
crete action that is from the nature of them that might make one think
they were hypocrites in living but they are not although certainly there
are in living some men wanting to deceive other men but this is not true
of this kind of them. One of such of these kind of them had a little boy
and this one, the little son wanted to make a collection of butterflies and
beetles and it was all exciting to him and it was all arranged then and
then the father said to the son you are certain this is not a cruel thing that
you are wanting to be doing, killing things to make collections of them,
and the son was very disturbed then and they talked about it together
the two of them and more and more they talked about it then and then
at last the boy was convinced it was a cruel thing and he said he would
not do it and his father said the little boy was a noble boy to give up
pleasure when it was a cruel one. The boy went to bed then and then
the father when he got up in the early morning saw a wonderfully beau-
tiful moth in the room and he caught him and he killed him and he
pinned him and he woke up his son then and showed it to him and he
said to him "see what a good father I am to have caught and killed this
one," the boy was all mixed up inside him and then he said he would
go on with his collecting and that was all there was then of discussing
and this is a little description of something that happened once and it is
very interesting.
Curiosity and suspicion these two things are often very interesting, this
one that I am now beginning describing had these very completely in
him, and always then this one had these more simply in him than any
one knowing him was realising, he had inquisitiveness in him for the
mere satisfaction of asking and knowing, he had suspicion in him be-
272 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
cause suspicious feeling was a pleasant feeling in him, he used inquisi-
tiveness and suspicion in living, that is certain, no one knowing him
could deny that of him, but often he was not using such things, he was
just inquiring, he was just asking because his attention was caught and
he liked to know everything and he liked asking and often suspicion was
in him because suspicion was an easy way to be feeling for him about
everything and a very pleasant feeling to have inside him. This one was
of the resisting slightly engulfing kind in men and women, resisting and
engulfing was equally in him. In many I have been describing engulfing
is stronger than resisting, in this one resisting and engulfing was pretty
nearly equally divided in him, he was thick but not too thick not too dry
in his being, he could take complete impression from everything he was
learning, he was always asking, he was continually suspecting, he was
quite successful in living. This is now to be a little a description of the
questions he was always asking, of the suspicion always in him.
Some men and women are inquisitive about everything, they are al-
ways asking, if they see any one with anything they ask what is that
thing, what is it you are carrying, what are you going to be doing with
that thing, why have you that thing, where did you get that thing, how
long will you have that thing, there are very many men and women who
want to know about anything about everything. I am such a one, I cer-
tainly am such a one. A very great many like to know a good many
things, a great many are always asking questions of every one, a great
many are to very many doing this with intention, a great many have
intention in their asking, a great many just have their attention caught
by anything and then they ask the question. Some when they are hear-
ing any one talking are immediately listening, many would like to know
what is in letters others are writing and receiving, a great many quite
honest ones are always wanting to know everything, a great many men
and women have a good deal suspicion in them about others and this
has in them not any very precise meaning. A great many are liking to
know things but do not do much asking, a great many have not any such
a feeling. A great many have a very great deal of suspiciousness in them,
a great many have almost not any of this being in them. This one that
I am now describing was one who was always asking and mostly always
every one was wondering what was this one meaning by the questions
he was asking and often later this one would perhaps be using informa-
tion he had had from asking questions but asking questions in him was
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 273
not a thing in him that came from wanting to be using some time infor-
mation he was gathering, very often asking questions in him was simply
from a catching of his attention by something. Once this one asked some
one he was visiting, just suddenly — and this door here does that lead
into the hall or directly out into the garden — and that was all he said
then about this thing and afterwards every one was thinking he would
be using this against them but really then this one was wondering did
the door lead to the hall or directly to a garden. If such a one, one hav-
ing this kind of a way is of the resisting engulfing type and fairly suc-
cessful in living and slow and sudden and quite suspicious of every one,
almost certainly then every one will think it to be true of such a one that
this one always is asking questions for purposes of winning, perhaps of
cheating, certainly for some distant manoeuvering. This is very common.
There are very many having in them rather engulfing rather resisting
being who are slow and sudden, who are a little absent when any one is
asking them anything, who are suspicious and quite trusting, who are
often asking questions for in their being being in slow action and always
more or less moving they have it that their attention is always a little
wandering waiting for something inside them to do something and so
then these of them are very busy having their attention caught by any-
thing and asking questions about everything and very often every one
knowing such of them are very suspicious of them and mostly these then
too have constant suspicion in them as constant as the questioning in
them. This is very common then with this kind of being. I am not yet
through with my description of this kind of resisting engulfing men and
women.
A great many men and women have very much suspicion in them of
everything of every one. A great many men a great many women have
steadily suspicion in them of everything of every one. A great many have
this in them from the beginning of living in them. A great many very
many of the resisting, dependent independent very earthy men and
women have complete suspicion, little steady suspicion of everything of
every one always in them. They do not have it from experiencing in them
they have it in them as a natural thing, they have it in them like a child
walking and certain that every step they are going to be tumbling. This
is very common, very many men very many women very many having
resisting being in them have it in them to be suspicious always of every
one of everything. This is in them very often when they are quite kindly
274 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
quite trusting, very many then having resisting being have it to have
very naturally in them always in them always steadily in them from
their beginning that they are suspicious of every one of everything, al-
ways suspicious always steadily suspicious inside them, this one then that
I am describing has suspicion always in him, there will be now a descrip-
tion of several of this kind in men and women. I am now going on with
my description of one, who was naturally a completely suspicious one.
Many having resisting being have it in them all their living when they
are beginning and then on to their ending have it to have suspicion al-
ways naturally in them and this is a natural thing for them to have in
them because they having resisting being have it in them to be knowing
that always some one is doing attacking. Resisting being in them is in
meaning that always some one some where is attacking, resisting being
is in them in some of them, in very many men in very many women as
having in them completely naturally always very much suspicion. Very
many men and women have in them completely all their living very
complete suspicious feeling very many men and women with resisting
being. Very many men and women with attacking being have suspicion
in them completely in them, sometime I will be telling very much of
them. Very many men and women have hardly any kind of suspicious
feeling ever in them. There are very many ways of having suspicious
feeling many kinds of ways many degrees of such feeling, now I am
giving a not very long description of one having in him very complete
suspicious feeling, very much suspicious feeling about men, very much
very complete suspicious feeling about women and this one was quite a
successful one in living and this one had very much inquisitive feeling
in him and this one was pretty completely resisting in his being pretty
completely engulfing in his being and always very many felt it about
him that every bit of asking in him and every bit of suspicion in him was
really deep wisdom in him and always then he had completely resisting
being in him completely engulfing being in him, complete suspicion in
him, complete inquisitiveness inside him, and always then he had en-
thusiasm and very much feeling about something and always he was
asking about everything and always he was having suspicious feeling in
him and altogether he was sufficiently a wise one, and very often he
was just asking because he saw something and very often he was just
suspecting because he had resisting being in him. This is one then that
is to me a completely interesting one. Every one is to me a completely
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 275
interesting one, this one is to me very completely an interesting one. I
like feeling the being in this one, sometime yes certainly sometime I will
be telling all the feeling I have in the complete being in this one. As I am
saying suspicious feeling is very interesting, very very interesting. Some-
time later I will tell very much about one kind of them of the resisting
kind of them that have it in them to have suspicious feeling as a com-
pletely interesting thing in them. I hope I will not be beginning now to
tell about this kind of them. Perhaps I will tell a little about such of them
in among this considerable number of men and women of the resisting
kind of them I am just now describing. I really do not want to begin now
about them. I will not begin now about them that is certain. I will com-
pletely understand them later and will be telling then about them. I cer-
tainly will not write anything now about them. That is now certain. I
have been writing now about a considerable number of the considerable
number I am now describing of the resisting kind of them. I will now
begin a pretty short description of another one of them. That is to be a
little description of one having rich resisting being and being a little too
quick perhaps quite a little too quick in ripening. This one had in him
quite some inquisitiveness in him, not any suspicion in him. This is to
be now quite a short description of him.
This one then as I am saying was of the resisting kind of them, that
is to say resisting was the way of winning in him, that is to say this one
was in a way slow in reacting, that is to say this one in a way was need-
ing to own those this one needed for loving, this was all true and this was
all not true of this one and this one was completely of resisting being, this
one was all made completely all of only resisting being. This one then
really was very early a completely highly developed one, this one was
very flowing in the completely creating power this one had inside him,
this one was a quite inquisitive one, this one had hardly any suspicious-
ness in natural ordinary daily living in him, this one was really not
owning the one this one needed for his loving. This one as I was saying
was of the resisting kind of them, not of the engulfing kind of them, of
completely sensitively resisting being and the resisting being and sensi-
tive being was pretty nearly equal in this one, it was pretty nearly as sen-
sitive as resisting but not quite completely so in this one it was a little
more sensitive than resisting and so this one was quick in developing,
early in flowering and this one was always trying to be a slower one and
this one really never was in living a really slow one. This one was as I
276 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
was saying not a suspicious one, resisting being was not strongly enough
in him as protecting to give to him a suspicious feeling toward everything
and every one. This one was not really owning the one this one needed
for his loving. This one could only own one this one needed for loving
by getting rid of the one this one needed for loving and then this one
would not be having the one this one needed for loving and then where
was this one, he was where he needed the one he needed for loving and
taking her back again made him then lose the power of owning this one,
the only way he could own this one was by getting rid of this one or by
secretly letting some other one love him, in this way then this one to
himself inside him could own the one he needed for loving. He really
could own the one he needed for loving by sending her away from him,
he then did not have near him the one he needed for loving, to himself
inside him then he could own that one by letting, by making some other
one love him and mostly then he dreamed of this thing, he did this thing.
This is now a clear complete description of one having resisting being.
This is now to be a description of another one having resisting being,
not engulfing resisting being, just resisting being, this one was a very
nice one, a very pleasant gentle, sensitive, fairly resisting, sometimes an-
grily resisting one, this one had some suspicion in her in living, this one
could have very often an injured feeling, this one had quite a good deal
of inquisitive feeling in her, this one needed to own to a considerable
degree those this one needed for loving, this one had children and chil-
dren were to this one a piece of her cut off from her that were as it were
equal to her and she was as they were, the same in living, thinking, feel-
ing and being. This one as I was saying was a gentle, often injured, fairly
angrily resisting one, quite inquisitive, with enough suspicious feeling
to be defending other ones when it was not at all her business to be inter-
fering and so this one a very nice a completely in a way honest one could
do something that was not a pretty thing for this one to be doing. This
is what this one did once in her living.
This one that I have been describing had not real suspicious feeling,
this one was of the resisting kind of them but this one had very much
more sensitiveness than resisting being and resisting being was in this
one not a kind of thing to make of this one really a suspicious one. This
being in this one resisting being in this one was in this one a sense of
really being gently minute by minute in living and so this one when
this one was adding up anything would always be adding it by one and
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 277
one and one. This one had it to be very careful in living and always this
one would be counting everything by one and one and one. Counting
everything this one was spending by one and one and one and one and
one and one was in this one resisting being was in this one recognition of
real existing of everything. This one could have very much injured feel-
ing, this one could have injured feeling very often could have it for her-
self for other ones for any one and this one sometimes was very mixed
up in doing anything by injured feeling for one and not for another one
and for that other one then and for this one herself this one inside this
one then and this one then was sufficiently complicated by injured feel-
ing inside this one and injured feeling was the only complicated thing
in the being and in the living of this one. This one was as I was saying a
very gentle a very sensitive one, this one was a resisting one, this one was
not at all an engulfing one, this one from the mixing of a little softly
resisting being and very much gentle and sensitive being had in this one
suspicion only as injured feeling. Some having this kind of being and
having sensitiveness not delicately and sensitively in them and resisting
slightly engulfing in them are completely suspicious and completely in-
jured always in their living and these very often have it in them to hav-
ing being persecuted as a mania in them. There are very many having
such being in them, later I will be telling a few little things that some-
times are happening in living in the living of this kind of men this kind
of women. As I was saying this one I am now just a little describing
was not at all not even a little bit an engulfing one, this one was a softly
resisting one a really earthy one really feeling always in living that exist-
ing anything existing is really there in being and always this one was
doing all the counting this one ever was doing by counting one and then
one and then one and then one. This one as I was saying had not really
suspicious being, this one as I was saying had much and quite often very
warmly really injured feeling, for herself in herself, for some other one,
for any other one and this injured feeling was in the being of this one
the only complication. Once some one, a young cousin, this one I am
describing was then coming to the beginning of the middle living in
this one, once a young cousin told this one, the cousin was very fond
of this one, that the cousin never wanted to be eating dinner at the house
of another one another cousin of this one, that he liked very much in-
deed being with his cousin but he did not like it at all for a place to be
dining, this was then all that was said just then. Later then the first
278 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
cousin the one that said this to the one I have been describing, asked this
cousin who had just come to be engaged to be married then to come and
take dinner with him. This one then the cousin asked to dine by the
other cousin of the one I am describing happened to mention to the one
I am describing that he was going to be dining next week with this
cousin. This one I am now describing had then completely inside this
one an injured feeling for this one that was going to be dining with the
other one that this one should be going to be dining with the other one
when the other one would not dine with that one because it was not a
pleasant thing and so this one I am describing told the one going to be
dining with the other one what that one had said about dining with him.
Then of course this one would not dine with the other one. And all this
came from there being in this one I am describing a soft resisting, a
gentle sensitive being with not any suspiciousness in being and not any
engulfing and not any egotism so that this one had to have in this one
that everything that could be aggression or suspicion or worldliness in
living or individual feeling was in this one injured feeling, a very little
angry and a very much hurt feeling and so this one had injured feeling
quite often and very much for this one, for some other one, for any other
one.
I will describe now very little a very different kind of one from that
one I have been just describing. There will not be then very many more
of them of the considerable number left then. There will perhaps then
still be left about six of them, six kinds of them and perhaps there will
be added a few more to make another generalisation but really there have
been already done a considerable part of the considerable number of the
resisting kind of them that I am now describing.
This one then is quite a different kind of a one from the last one I
was describing. This one as a whole one is like a cannon-ball lying on a
bag of cotton, the cannon-ball lying on a cotton bag as a complete thing
was the whole of this one. This is in a way a description of this one, there
will be now a very little more description of this one.
Children are always thinking are very often thinking that their
mothers are very lovely looking and that is very often because mostly
the child is always close up to the mother close to her when the child is
looking and mostly being close like that as a habitual thing is to find
that one a lovely thing a lovely looking one.
This one that I was saying was a whole one which was like a can-
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 279
non-ball resting on a bag of cotton was the cotton part finding the
cannon-ball lovely looking being always so close to that thing and the
cannon-ball was finding the cotton lovely looking that being so closely
always to that thing. To explain then. This one then was one having
solid enough dull not very lively, not lively at all fairly dry resisting
bottom, a bottom that might have been engulfing if it had been a lively
dark wet thing, but this was not true of it then at all that it was engulfing,
it was entirely not engulfing. As I was saying many having engulfing
being and not having resisting being enough in them are very aspiring
and this one then had aspiration like what might have been engulfing
in the bottom being the bottom being which was not at all engulfing.
Some of this kind of them have it as a bottom being something that is
more nearly engulfing and these then have more active aspiration as
ambition, these have then more nearly some power of very nearly en-
gulfing something but this one was as little engulfing as such a kind of
them can be in living, just as amiable and ideal in aspiration and aspira-
tion in this one as I was saying was like the cannon-ball resting on the
bag of cotton, it was completely beautiful always to all that cotton and
this one was always living near light and beauty near to the aspiration,
the cannon-ball and this one was then as I was saying amiable in inten-
tion and clear and large worded and hesitating in expression. This one
is an interesting enough one. I am knowing quite well three of these of
them, one is more nearly engulfing, one has of him the very largest size
in bags of cotton, one and this is the one I am realising in now describ-
ing was a little skimped in the cotton foundation. This is not a funny
description, I was not certain I should say anything of the cannon-ball
and the cotton, I was almost certain I would not say anything in this de-
scription about the cannon-ball and the cotton, it was not in me a natu-
ral way of conceiving any one, some one conceived this one as a cannon-
ball resting on a bag of cotton, I used that in my description, this is not
to me a natural way of talking, I have been using it here as I am saying.
Now I will begin describing another one and that will be leaving only
a few more to be describing of the considerable number of them that I
have been describing of the resisting kind of them. This one that I am
now beginning describing is of the resisting and sensitive and suspicious
kind of them and now I will be telling a few stories about such of them.
It is very hard with some to be realising what kind they are this kind
of them when they are quite old ones. It is a very difficult thing to be
280 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
realising of some kinds of them one has been knowing before the be-
ginning of their middle living what they are as old ones, these in living.
When one is oneself a fairly old one, one will be knowing a little more
perhaps of this thing, one is knowing a little of something of this thing
from old relations one is knowing and one knowing all the family of
these then is perhaps a little knowing what these are as younger ones
in living. These that I am now describing are a kind of them that when
they are old ones no one is paying much attention to them. They have
then as old ones the same being in them I am now describing, they are
mostly not any too successfully living all their living, they have when
they are old ones the same being in them, mostly then not very many
then are paying much attention to them then, these when they are old
ones in living, these that I am now describing.
These then that I am now describing are a kind of them that have
sensitiveness that is complete suspicion in them, these are of the kind
of them that are themselves completely important to themselves inside
them, they have resistance in them much less than sensitiveness as sus-
picion in them. Suspicion in these of them comes out of the sensitiveness
of them before the sensitiveness in them gives to them inside them really
an emotion and so in these in living suspicion is as it were the whole of
them, the complete emotion always in them. This sensitiveness in them
that is in them a suspicion before it is an emotion in them from anything
is always every moment in such of them. That these have it in them
that sensitiveness makes for them suspicion before they have from any-
thing a complete emotion is the reason that these mostly are not very suc-
cessful in living, they are a little successful many of them and when they
are older ones or old ones, no one, not any one is paying much attention
to them. These then in a way are not really earthy, not really resisting,
not at all engulfing, these then in a way are not certain that dead is dead,
that things really are existing, these can have superstition and religion
and prudence and fear and almost a crazy kind of thinking in them.
This is now some stories about some of them.
I feel it and I brood over it and it comes then very simply from me,
do you see how simply it comes out of me, you see, I feel it and I think
about it and then I know it and I know then it is a simple thing, why are
you always saying then it is a complicated one when really it is a very
simple one this thing, do you see now it is a very simple thing this thing,
do you see that this is a simple thing like everything why then should
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 281
you make of it a complicated thing when it is a simple thing, do you see
now that it is a simple thing this thing, why do you make everything a
complicated thing, do you see, this is a simple thing, everything is a sim-
ple thing, you make everything a complicated thing when everything is
a simple thing, do you see, it is a simple thing, you say it is a complicated
thing, do you see, everything is a simple thing that is certain, do you see,
that is certain. Very many are always saying this thing, it is very com-
mon, to be certain, to be really certain that some one is really feeling
thinking seeing that that one is really feeling thinking seeing what that
one really is seeing feeling thinking is certainly a quite rare thing. Mostly
then it is a difficult thing, a patient solemn thing to be really certain that
any one is really feeling seeing thinking believing what that one in the
way that one really is feeling thinking seeing believing is feeling think-
ing seeing believing anything. These then I am now describing who are
completely for themselves suspicious ones, who have it in them to have
emotion in them become suspicion before it is a real emotion of anything
for anything about anything in them, these have it completely to be
certain that every one is doing feeling seeing the thing that one is feel-
ing doing seeing believing when such a one is not agreeing with them,
when such a one is feeling thinking believing doing anything that such
a one is doing that thing for a mean or wicked or jealous or stupid or
obstinate or cursed or religious reason, it is not a real feeling believing
seeing realising, that this one having suspicion in him is certain. One of
such a kind of one once liked very well some one and then that one for-
got to give this one five cents that this one had paid for that one and
then this one hated that one, had no trust in that one for this one was
certain that that one knowing that this one was too sensitive to be ask-
ing did not think it necessary to pay that one, he never could believe
that any one forgot such a thing. This is an extreme thing of a way of
feeling that is common to all of these of them. Another one once was
always certain that some one who one time told him that he would
sometime later be successful in teaching meant it that he would not be
successful in painting and that this was because that one was jealous
of this one although that one had just met this one. This one was cer-
tain that every one sometime would do a mean thing to him and al-
ways each one to him sometime did this thing. Once one said to him I
hope you will be successful in the city where you are going to earn your
living. That means that you think my way of working rotten, you know
282 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
very well no one making a living there is doing good work to your
thinking, it would be a better thing to say what you are thinking straight
out, said this one. One of such a kind of them was always asking and
always getting and always he was certain that every one was doing the
thing they were doing because they wanted to make of him a poor thing
and some of such of them are always having difficulty with partners and
others and any one and then as I am saying when they are older ones
not any one pays very much attention to them. These are some and more
or less like them are very many a very great many always living who
have it in them that anything to them makes an emotion that is sus-
picion before it is real emotion in them.
In some connected with them, sensitiveness that in these I have been
*
just describing turns into suspicion before it is sensation or emotion
about a person, a thing clone, or anything, in these turns into cleverness
in them or self-protection in the sense of doing nothing and breaking
all engagements and giving up all obligation. In some it turns before
it is really a sensation into a sensual passion. This is all very interest-
ing surely to any one really believing really being certain completely cer-
tain that different ones are different in kind from other kinds of them are
really different in experiencing. This is in a way a very difficult thing
to really truly believe in one, that some one really has a completely differ-
ent kind of a way of feeling a thing from another one. Mostly every
one in practical living needs only to be completely realising their own
experiencing and then need only to be realising other ones experiencing
enough to be using them, the ones experiencing. It is a very difficult
thing to really believe it of another one what the other one is really feel-
ing, it is such a very long learning anybody must be having to be really
to be actually believing this thing. I do this thing. I am a rare one, I
know this always more in living. I know always more in living that
other ones are really believing what they are believing, feeling, what
they are feeling, thinking, what they are thinking, always more and
more in living I know I am a rare one. There are not very many having
this very completely really in them.
To go on now then describing a little more some of these I have been
last mentioning. Some of these are having their sensitiveness making
of them clever, or self-protecting, or sexually wanting anything, without
having really emotion from the thing from the sensitiveness in them.
These are of the resisting kind of them and might to some seem to be en-
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 283
gulfing but they are not really resisting or engulfing. Sensitiveness turns
into suspicion, cleverness, self-protection, sexual action before it comes
as an emotion and these mostly then never have sensitiveness in them
leading to emotion by reaction to a person or thing or action. These then
are interesting. To be telling then now a little more of some of them.
These then all of them have it in them that everything turns inside
them to suspicion, to cleverness, to self-protection, to sexual emotion,
to sensibility of a kind that is a thing that is called sentimental, before
it comes to produce emotion from the thing about the thing in relation
to the thing itself inside them. There is one, I knew this one quite very
well once and last week again I was seeing this one and now I am quite
a good deal understanding this one, this is one and in this one everything
was in this one sensibility of a sentimental kind, this was in this one not
very much as suspicion as I was saying it is in some, and in this one every-
thing, nothing had any meaning excepting as arousing a feeling of sen-
timental sensibility that was the same thing whatever was the thing that
came to this one as touching this one. This one was pretty completely
to every one completely socially one and this is quite a common thing.
Sometime a history of her and her. two mothers and her sister will be
written and I have been telling that it will be written to several of them.
She was as I was saying completely such a one and as a younger one
was sharp and interesting and then she was a married one and then
she was large and dull. This was after she succeeded fairly at the be-
ginning of her middle living in coming to be a married one. She had
not then any reaction at all in living for she was then in her married
living living with bottom being reacting and there was no bottom being
in her, living, at all in her then and every one said it was such a surpris-
ing thing that she should be then so completely a submissive and indif-
ferent and inefficient and a little a timid one then when she had been
before her being a married one so altogether an emotional and dark,
expressive and clever one but it was just this thing that I am saying that
I am now pretty well understanding that makes it a completely a natural
thing, she had not ever had anything that did not turn to sensibility
before it reached her in her and when she was a tired one and married
and fatter then there was not this then. She is an interesting one, really
she is a very interesting one, she is quite a pretty ugly one now but not
in any way now an active one as now I am completely realising. It is an
interesting history the history of all of this kind of them. It is a very in-
284 THE MAKING OF AMERICANS
teresting thing the history of this one. The complete family living of
this one is a thing I could make a remarkably interesting thing to any
one, that is certain. I have been telling that to this one. This one did not
like very much to hear me say that thing, it is a certain thing that it is
an interesting thing to me and I could tell it so to every one, I have been
telling it to this one that I can make it a completely interesting thing.
This one was not liking it very well then. Sometime I will be feeling
completely the telling of it and then I will be telling it, I have told this
one that I will tell it then. This one will not know then it is this one. That
is the very nice thing in this writing. Sometime I will tell everything,
everything. Mostly I do tell anything.
One of this kind of them I have been describing has it that every-
thing is in her as cleverness, or self-protection from any stimulation,
never an emotion about a thing. This one would, if she could, have real
emotion but it never is even a little bit in her of herself, inside her. Some-
times it is, a moment, a real feeling in her, something from something,
when it is made to be in her by some one by force holding her from hav-
ing it turn into cleverness, suspicion, sentimental believing, self-protec-
tion and so giving it a chance to sink into her so that she has a reaction
to it really in her. This has a few times happened to her. This one is
always feeling that some one should do this for her. Holding her from
being her way in her so that emotion can be in her has been done for her.
She never can do this for herself, ever. She is in her feeling certain that
every one in this way should be doing for her. She is all her living need-
ing that some one do this thing. She has it in her as a feeling that the
world owes it to her to do this for her. She has not ever any really grate-
ful feeling, she has only the emotion that some one wins in her for her.
It is an interesting game to play in her and very many do it for her. Then
they lose the power and she has to have another. She does not know that
she is certain that the world owes this to her.
This one then would have it in her to be certain that to be dead was
not to be at all really a dead one, this was what this one wanted to have
in her as realisation, as emotion, this conviction is what this one was very
certain the world owed her. This is what this one wanted that she should
have in her, have as emotion inside her, this emotion in her is what every
one knowing should do for her inside her. Very many coming to know
her tried to give it to her, always she was wanting to have this inside
her, the conviction, the emotion that to be dead was not to be really a
THE MAKING OF AMERICANS 285
dead one. This was the history of the living in her. She had in her as
I was saying to have it that nothing gave to her really an emotion about
that thing. Every thing touching her aroused in her suspicion, clever-
ness and self-protection. She wanted to have conviction and emotion
that to be dead is not to be really truly a dead one. She wanted this in
her, this realisation and emotion, in her, and then too she would be cer-
tain, she knew then she would then be really certain completely certain
that every one was a very much better one than each one really was in
living. She was certain, pretty nearly certain that if she were really com-
pletely certain that she was really knowing that to be dead was not to
be at all a really dead one she would then be knowing that every one
living was really a very much better one than each one really is living
and this would be a very pleasant feeling for her to be having. Always
then she was needing to be completely certain that she was really know-
ing that to be dead was not to be really at all a dead one and always she
was unconsciously feeling that the world owed it to her to give her this
realisation. This was a history of her. Perhaps she never came really to
have it in her, perhaps she came to have it a little in her, always some
one was working in her for her, this is a history of her. This is an amus-
ing thing, this history of this one. Sometime a very detailed history of
this one will be an amusing thing to be writing, to be reading. Now I
will not tell any more detail of this one.
Three Portraits of Painters
CEZANNE, MATISSE, PICASSO
The portraits of Matisse and Picasso were originally published in the
August, 1912, issue of CAMERA WORK and later were reprinted in
PORTRAITS AND PRAYERS, 79^. Stieglitz told me recently that he had ac-
cepted them for publication as soon as he had looked them over, prin-
cipally because he did not immediately understand them. These por-
traits, the earliest examples of Gertrude Stein s "difficult" wor\ to reach
the public, were much commented on and satirized. In LECTURES IN
AMERICA she has explained: "I continued to do what I was doing in THE
MAKING OF AMERICANS, / was doing what the cinema was doing, I was
making a continuous succession of the statement of what that person
was until I had not many things but one thing!9
Cezanne
The Irish lady can say, that to-day is every day. Caesar can say that every
day is to-day and they say that every day is as they say.
In this way we have a place to stay and he was not met because he
was settled to stay. When I said settled I meant settled to stay. When I
said settled to stay I meant settled to stay Saturday. In this way a mouth
is a mouth. In this way if in as a mouth if in as a mouth where, if in as
a mouth where and there. Believe they have water too. Believe they have
that water too and blue when you see blue, is all blue precious too, is all
that that is precious too is all that and they meant to absolve you. In this
way Cezanne nearly did nearly in this way. Cezanne nearly did nearly did
and nearly did. And was I surprised. Was I very surprised. Was I sur-
prised. I was surprised and in that patient, are you patient when you find
bees. Bees in a garden make a specialty of honey and so does honey.
Honey and prayer. Honey and there. There where the grass can grow
nearly four times yearly.
Matisse
One was quite certain that for a long part of his being one being living
he had been trying to be certain that he was wrong in doing what he
was doing and then when he could not come to be certain that he had
been wrong in doing what he had been doing, when he had completely
convinced himself that he would not come to be certain that he had
289
290 THREE PORTRAITS OF PAINTERS
been wrong in doing what he had been doing he was really certain then
that he was a great one and he certainly was a great one. Certainly every
one could be certain of this thing that this one is a great one.
Some said of him, when anybody believed in him they did not then
believe in any other one. Certainly some said this of him.
He certainly very clearly expressed something. Some said that he did
not clearly express anything. Some were certain that he expressed some-
thing very clearly and some of such of them said that he would have
been a greater one if he had not been one so clearly expressing what he
was expressing. Some said he was not clearly expressing what he was
expressing and some of such of them said that the greatness of strug-
gling which was not clear expression made of him one being a com-
pletely great one.
Some said of him that he was greatly expressing something strug-
gling. Some said of him that he was not greatly expressing something
struggling.
He certainly was clearly expressing something, certainly sometime
any one might come to know that of him. Very many did come to know
it of him that he was clearly expressing what he was expressing. He was
a great one. Any one might come to know that of him. Very many did
come to know that of him. Some who came to know that of him, that
he was a great one, that he was clearly expressing something, came then
to be certain that he was not greatly expressing something being strug-
gling. Certainly he was expressing something being struggling. Any
one could be certain that he was expressing something being struggling.
Some were certain that he was greatly expressing this thing. Some were
certain that he was not greatly expressing this thing. Every one could
come to be certain that he was a great man. Any one could come to be
certain that he was clearly expressing something.
Some certainly were wanting to be needing to be doing what he was
doing, that is clearly expressing something. Certainly they were willing
to be wanting to be a great one. They were, that is some of them, were
not wanting to be needing expressing anything being struggling. And
certainly he was one not greatly expressing something being struggling,
he was a great one, he was clearly expressing something. Some were
wanting to be doing what he was doing that is clearly expressing some-
thing. Very many were doing what he was doing, not greatly express-
MATISSE 291
ing something being struggling. Very many were wanting to be doing
what he was doing were not wanting to be expressing anything being
struggling.
There were very many wanting to be doing what he was doing that
is to be one clearly expressing something. He was certainly a great man,
any one could be really certain of this thing, every one could be cer-
tain of this thing. There were very many who were wanting to be ones
doing what he was doing that is to be ones clearly expressing some-
thing and then very many of them were not wanting to be being ones
doing that thing, that is clearly expressing something, they wanted to
be ones expressing something being struggling, something being going
to. be some other thing, something being going to be something some
one sometime would be clearly expressing and that would be something
that would be a thing then that would then be greatly expressing some
other thing then that thing, certainly very many were then not want-
ing to be doing what this one was doing clearly expressing something
and some of them had been ones wanting to be doing that thing want-
ing to be ones clearly expressing something. Some were wanting to be
ones doing what this one was doing wanted to be ones clearly expressing
something. Some of such of them were ones certainly clearly expressing
something, that was in them a thing not really interesting then any
other one. Some of such of them went on being all their living ones
wanting to be clearly expressing something and some of them were
clearly expressing something.
This one was one very many were knowing some and very many were
glad to meet him, very many sometimes listened to him, some listened
to him very often, there were some who listened to him, and he talked
then and he told them then that certainly he had been one suffering
and he was then being one trying to be certain that he was wrong in
doing what he was doing and he had come then to be certain that he
never would be certain that he was doing what it was wrong for him
to be doing then and he was suffering then and he was certain that he
would be one doing what he was doing and he was certain that he
should be one doing what he was doing and he was certain that he would
always be one suffering and this then made him certain this, that he
would always be one being suffering, this made him certain that he
was expressing something being struggling and certainly very many
292 THREE PORTRAITS OF PAINTERS
were quite certain that he was greatly expressing something being strug-
gling. This one was knowing some who were listening to him and he
was telling very often about being one suffering and this was not a
dreary thing to any one hearing that then, it was not a saddening thing
to any one hearing it again and again, to some it was quite an interest-
ing thing hearing it again and again, to some it was an exciting thing
hearing it again and again, some knowing this one and being certain
that this one was a great man and was one clearly expressing something
were ones hearing this one telling about being one being living were
hearing this one telling this thing again and again. Some who were
ones knowing this one and were ones certain that this one was one who
was clearly telling something, was a great man, we/e not listening very
often to this one telling again and again about being one being living.
Certainly some who were certain that this one was a great man and
one clearly expressing something and greatly expressing something
being struggling were listening to this one telling about being living
telling about this again and again and again. Certainly very many know-
ing this one and being certain that this one was a great man and that
this one was clearly telling something were not listening to this one
telling about being living, were not listening to this one telling this
again and again.
This one was certainly a great man, this one was certainly clearly ex-
pressing something. Some were certain that this one was clearly express-
ing something being struggling, some were certain that this one was
not greatly expressing something being struggling.
Very many were not listening again and again to this one telling
about being one being living. Some were listening again and again to
this one telling about this one being one being in living.
Some were certainly wanting to be doing what this one was doing
that is were wanting to be ones clearly expressing something. Some of
such of them did not go on in being ones wanting to be doing what
this one was doing that is in being ones clearly expressing something.
Some went on being ones wanting to be doing what this one was doing
that is, being ones clearly expressing something. Certainly this one was
one who was a great man. Any one could be certain of this thing. Every
one would come to be certain of this thing. This one was one certainly
clearly expressing something. Any one could come to be certain of this
PICASSO 293
thing. Every one would come to be certain of this thing. This one was
one, some were quite certain, one greatly expressing something being
struggling. This one was one, some were quite certain, one not greatly
expressing something being struggling.
Picasso
One whom some were certainly following was one who was completely
charming. One whom some were certainly following was one who was
charming. One whom some were following was one who was com-
pletely charming. One whom some were following was one who was
certainly completely charming.
Some were certainly following and were certain that the one they
were then following was one working and was one bringing out of
himself then something. Some were certainly following and were cer-
tain that the one they were then following was one bringing out of him-
self then something that was coming to be a heavy thing, a solid thing
and a complete thing.
One whom some were certainly following was one working and cer-
tainly was one bringing something out of himself then and was one
who had been all his living had been one having something coming
out of him.
Something had been coming out of him, certainly it had been coming
out of him, certainly it was something, certainly it had been coming
out of him and it had meaning, a charming meaning, a solid meaning, a
struggling meaning, a clear meaning.
One whom some were certainly following and some were certainly
following him, one whom some were certainly following was one cer-
tainly working.
One whom some were certainly following was one having something
294 THREE PORTRAITS OF PAINTERS
coming out of him something having meaning and this one was cer-
tainly working then.
This one was working and something was coming then, something
was coming out of this one then. This one was one and always there
was something coming out of this one and always there had been some-
thing coming out of this one. This one had never been one not having
something coming out of this one. This one was one having something
coming out of this one. This one had been one whom some were follow-
ing. This one was one whom some were following. This one was being
one whom some were following. This one was one who was working.
This one was one who was working. This one was one being one
having something being coming out of him. This .one was one going
on having something come out of him. This one was one going on work-
ing. This one was one whom some were following. This one was one
who was working.
This one always had something being coming out of this one. This
one was working. This one always had been working. This one was
always having something that was coming out of this one that was a
solid thing, a charming thing, a lovely thing, a perplexing thing, a dis-
concerting thing, a simple thing, a cleaj- thing, a complicated thing, an
interesting thing, a disturbing thing, a repellant thing, a very pretty
thing. This one was one certainly being one having something coming
out of him. This one was one whom some were following. This one was
one who was working.
This one was one who was working and certainly this one was need-
ing to be working so as to be one being working. This one was one
having something coming out of him. This one would be one all his
living having something coming out of him. This one was working and
then this one was working and this one was needing to be working, not
to be one having something coming out of him something having
meaning, but was needing to be working so as to be one working.
This one was certainly working and working was something this one
was certain this one would be doing and this one was doing that thing,
this one was working. This one was not one completely working. This
one was not ever completely working. This one certainly was not com-
pletely working.
This one was one having always something being coming out of him,
something having completely a real meaning. This one was one whom
PICASSO 295
some were following. This one was one who was working. This one
was one who was working and he was one needing this thing needing
to be working so as to be one having some way of being one having
some way of working. This one was one who was working. This one
was one having something come out of him something having mean-
ing. This one was one always having something come out of him and
this thing the thing coming out of him always had real meaning. This
one was one who was working. This one was one who was almost
always working. This one was not one completely working. This one
was one not ever completely working. This one was not one working
to have anything come out of him. He always did have something having
meaning that did come out of him. He always did have something come
out of him. He was working, he was not ever completely working. He
did have some following. They were always following him. Some were
certainly following him. He was one who was working. He was one
having something coming out of him something having meaning. He
was not ever completely working.
Melanctha
EACH ONE AS SHE MAY
This, the second story in THREE LIVES, published first in 1909 and fre-
quently reprinted since, is probably the most generally admired, and
possibly the best known, wor\ of Miss Stein. Richard Wright has called
4t "the first long serious literary treatment of Negro life in the United
States." In his review of WARS I HAVE SEEN published in PM, March n,
1945, the author of BLACK BOY further comments on this story:
"Prompted by random curiosity while I was browsing one day in a Chi-
cago Public Library, I tooJ^ from the open shelves a tiny volume called
THREE LIVES and looked at a story in it, entitled MELANCTHA. The style
was so insistent and original and sang so quaintly that I too\ the book
home.
"As 1 read it my ears were opened for the first 'time to the magic of
the spoken word. I began to hear the speech of my grandmother, who
spol^e a deep, pure Negro dialect and with whom I had lived for many
years.
"All of my life I had been only half hearing, but Miss Stein's strug*
gling words made the speech of the people around me vivid. From that
moment on, in my attempts at writing, I was able to tap at will the vast
pool of living words that swirled around me.
"But in the midst of my delight, I was jolted. A left-wing literary
critic, whose judgment I had been led to respect, condemned Miss Stein
in a sharply-worded newspaper article, implying that she spent her days
reclining upon a silken couch in Paris smoking hashish, that she was
a hopeless prey to hallucinations and that her tortured verbalisms were
throttling the Revolution. I was disturbed. Had I duped myself into
worshiping decadence?
fi Believing in direct action, I contrived a method to gauge the degree
to which Miss Stein s prose was tainted with the spirit of counter-revo-
lution. I gathered a group of semi-literate Negro stockyard workers —
'basic proletarians with the instinct for revolution9 (am I quoting right?)
— into a Blac\ Belt basement and read MELANCTHA aloud to them. They
understood every word. Enthralled, they slapped their thighs, howled,
laughed, stomped, and interrupted me constantly to comment upon the
characters.
"My fondness for Steinian prose never distressed me after that!9
Each One As She May
Rose Johnson made it very hard to bring her baby to its birth.
Melanctha Herbert who was Rose Johnson's friend, did everything
that any woman could. She tended Rose, and she was patient, submis-
sive, soothing, and untiring, while the sullen, childish, cowardly, black
Rosie grumbled and fussed and howled and made herself to be an
abomination and like a simple beast.
The child though it was healthy after it was born, did not live long.
Rose Johnson was careless and negligent and selfish, and when
Melanctha had to leave for a few days, the baby died. Rose Johnson
had liked the baby well enough and perhaps she just forgot it for awhile,
anyway the child was dead and Rose and Sam her husband were very
sorry but then these things came so often in the negro world in Bridge-
point, that they neither of them thought about it very long.
Rose Johnson and Melanctha Herbert had been friends now for some
years. Rose had lately married Sam Johnson a decent honest kindly
fellow, a deck hand on a coasting steamer.
Melanctha Herbert had not yet been really married.
Rose Johnson was a real black, tall, well built, sullen, stupid, child-
like, good looking negress. She laughed when she was happy and grum-
bled and was sullen with everything that troubled.
Rose Johnson was a real black negress but she had been brought up
quite like their own child by white folks.
Rose laughed when she was happy but she had not the wide, aban-
doned laughter that makes the warm broad glow of negro sunshine.
Rose was never joyous with the earth-born, boundless joy of negroes.
Hers was just ordinary, any sort of woman laughter.
Rose Johnson was careless and was lazy, but she had been brought
up by white folks and she needed decent comfort. Her white training
had only made for habits, not for nature. Rose had the simple, promis-
cuous unmorality of the black people.
299
300 MELANCTHA
Rose Johnson and Melanctha Herbert like many of the twos with
women were a curious pair to be such friends.
Melanctha Herbert was a graceful, pale yellow, intelligent, attractive
negress. She had not been raised like Rose by white folks but then she
had been half made with real white blood.
She and Rose Johnson were both of the better sort of negroes, there,
in Bridgepoint.
"No, I ain't no common nigger," said Rose Johnson, "for I was raised
by white folks, and Melanctha she is so bright and learned so much
in school, she ain't no common nigger either, though she ain't got no
husband to be married to like I am to Sam Johnson."
Why did the subtle, intelligent, attractive, half white girl Melanctha
Herbert love and do for and demean herself in service to this coarse,
decent, sullen, ordinary, black childish Rose, and why was this unmoral,
promiscuous, shiftless Rose married, and that's not so common either,
to a good man of the negroes, while Melanctha with her white blood
and attraction and her desire for a right position had not yet been really
married.
Sometimes the thought of how all her world was made, filled the
complex, desiring Melanctha with despair. She wondered, often, how
she could go on living when she was so blue.
Melanctha told Rose one day how a woman whom she knew had
killed herself because she was so blue. Melanctha said, sometimes, she
thought this was the best thing for her herself to do.
Rose Johnson did not see it the least bit that way.
"I don't see Melanctha why you should talk like you would kill your-
self just because you're blue. I'd never kill myself Melanctha just 'cause
I was blue. I'd maybe kill somebody else Melanctha 'cause I was blue,
but I'd never kill myself. If I ever killed myself Melanctha it'd be by
accident, and if I ever killed myself by accident Melanctha, I'd be awful
sorry."
Rose Johnson and Melanctha Herbert had first met, one night, at
church. Rose Johnson did not care much for religion. She had not
enough emotion to be really roused by a revival. Melanctha Herbert
had not come yet to know how to use religion. She was still too complex
with desire. However, the two of them in negro fashion went very often
to the negro church, along with all their friends, and they slowly came
to know each other very well.
EACH ONE AS SHE MAY 301
Rose Johnson had been raised not as a servant but quite like their
own child by white folks. Her mother who had died when Rose was
still a baby, had been a trusted servant in the family. Rose was a cute,
attractive, good looking little black girl and these people had no children
of their own and so they kept Rose in their house.
As Rose grew older she drifted from her white folks back to the
colored people, and she gradually no longer lived in the old house.
Then it happened that these people went away to some other town to
live, and somehow Rose stayed behind in Bridgepoint. Her white folks
left a little money to take care of Rose, and this money she got every
little while.
Rose now in the easy fashion of the poor lived with one woman in her
house, and then for no reason went and lived with some other woman
in her house. All this time, too, Rose kept company, and was engaged,
first to this colored man and then to that and always she made sure she
was engaged, for Rose had strong the sense of proper conduct.
"No, I ain't no common nigger just to go around with any man, nor
you Melanctha shouldn't neither," she said one day when she was telling
the complex and less sure Melanctha what was the right way for her
to do. "No Melanctha, I ain't no common nigger to do so, for I was
raised by white folks. You know very well Melanctha that I'se always
been engaged to them."
And so Rose lived on, always comfortable and rather decent and very
lazy and very well content.
After she had lived some time this way, Rose thought it would be
nice and very good in her position to get regularly really married. She
had lately met Sam Johnson somewhere, and she liked him and she
knew he was a good man, and then he had a place where he worked
every day and got good wages. Sam Johnson liked Rose very well and
he was quite ready to be married. One day they had a grand real wed-
ding and were married. Then with Melanctha Herbert's help to do the
sewing and the nicer work, they furnished comfortably a little red brick
house. Sam then went back to his work as deck hand on a coasting
steamer, and Rose stayed home in her house and sat and bragged to all
her friends how nice it was to be married really to a husband.
Life went on very smoothly with them all the year. Rose was lazy
but not dirty and Sam was careful but not fussy, and then there was
Melanctha to come in every day and help to keep things neat.
302 MELANCTHA
When Rose's baby was coming to be born, Rose came to stay in the
house where Melanctha Herbert lived just then, with a big good natured
colored woman who did washing.
Rose went there to stay, so that she might have the doctor from the
hospital near by to help her have the baby, and then, too, Melanctha
could attend to her while she was sick.
Here the baby was born, and here it died, and then Rose went back
to her house again with Sam.
Melanctha Herbert had not made her life all simple like Rose John-
son. Melanctha had not found it easy with herself to make her wants
and what she had, agree.
Melanctha Herbert was always losing what she had in wanting all
the things she saw. Melanctha was always being left when she was not
leaving others.
Melanctha Herbert always loved too hard and much too often. She
was always full with mystery and subtle movements and denials and
vague distrusts and complicated disillusions. Then Melanctha would
be sudden and impulsive and unbounded in some faith, and then she
would suffer and be strong in her repression.
Melanctha Herbert was always seeking rest and quiet, and always
she could only find new ways to be in trouble.
Melanctha wondered often how it was she did not kill herself when
she was so blue. Often she thought this would be really the best way for
her to do.
Melanctha Herbert had been raised to be religious, by her mother.
Melanctha had not liked her mother very well. This mother, 'Mis' Her-
bert, as her neighbors called her, had been a sweet appearing and dig-
nified and pleasant, pale yellow, colored woman. 'Mis' Herbert had
always been a little wandering and mysterious and uncertain in her
ways.
Melanctha was pale yellow and mysterious and a little pleasant like
her mother, but the real power in Melanctha's nature came through her
robust and unpleasant and very unendurable black father.
Melanctha's father only used to come to where Melanctha and her
mother lived, once in a while.
It was many years now that Melanctha had not heard or seen or known
of anything her father did.
Melanctha Herbert almost always hated her black father, but she
EACH ONE AS SHE MAY 303
loved very well the power in herself that came through him. And so her
feeling was really closer to her black coarse father, than her feeling had
ever been toward her pale yellow, sweet-appearing mother. The things
she had in her of her mother never made her feel respect.
Melanctha Herbert had not loved herself in childhood. All of her
youth was bitter to remember.
Melanctha had not loved her father and her mother and they had
found it very troublesome to have her.
Melanctha's mother and her father had been regularly married. Me-
lanctha's father was a big black virile negro. He only came once in
a while to where Melanctha and her mother lived, but always that
pleasant, sweet-appearing, pale yellow woman, mysterious and uncer-
tain and wandering in her ways, was close in sympathy and thinking
to her big black virile husband.
James Herbert was a common, decent enough, colored workman,
brutal and rough to his one daughter, but then she was a most dis-
turbing child to manage.
The young Melanctha did not love her father and her mother, and
she had a breakneck courage, and a tongue that could be very nasty.
Then, too, Melanctha went to school and was very quick in all the
learning, and she knew very well how to use this knowledge to annoy
her parents who knew nothing.
Menanctha Herbert had always had a breakneck courage. Melanc-
tha always loved to be with horses; she loved to do wild things, to
ride the horses and to break and tame them.
Melanctha, when she was a little girl, had had a good chance to live
with horses. Near where Melanctha and her mother lived was the
stable of the Bishops, a rich family who always had fine horses.
John, the Bishops' coachman, liked Melanctha very well and he
always let her do anything she wanted with the horses. John was
a decent, vigorous mulatto with a prosperous house and wife and
children. Melanctha Herbert was older than any of his children. She
was now a well grown girl of twelve and just beginning as a woman.
James Herbert, Melanctha's father, knew this John, the Bishops'
coachman very well.
One day James Herbert came to where his wife and daughter lived,
and he was furious.
"Where's that Melanctha girl of yours," he said fiercely, "if she is
304 MELANCTHA
to the Bishops' stables again, with that man John, I swear I kill her.
Why don't you see to that girl better you, you're her mother."
James Herbert was a powerful, loose built, hard handed, black,
angry negro. Herbert never was a joyous negro. Even when he drank
with other men, and he did that very often, he was never really joyous.
In the days when he had been most young and free and open, he had
never had the wide abandoned laughter that gives the broad glow to
negro sunshine.
His daughter, Melanctha Herbert, later always made a hard forced
laughter. She was only strong and sweet and in her nature when she
was really deep in trouble, when she was fighting so with all she
really had, that she did not use her laughter. This was always true of
poor Melanctha who was so certain that she hated trouble. Melanctha
Herbert was always seeking peace and quiet, and she could always
only find new ways to get excited.
James Herbert was often a very angry negro. He was fierce and
serious, and he was very certain that he often had good reason to be
angry with Melanctha, who knew so well how to be nasty, and to use
her learning with a father who knew nothing.
James Herbert often drank with John, the Bishops' coachman. John
in his good nature sometimes tried to soften Herbert's feeling toward
Melanctha. Not that Melanctha ever complained to John of her home
life or her father. It was never Melanctha's way, even in the midst of
her worst trouble to complain to any one of what happened to her,
but nevertheless somehow every one who knew Melanctha always
knew how much she suffered. It was only while one really loved
Melanctha that one understood how to forgive her, that she never
once complained nor looked unhappy, and was always handsome and
in spirits, and yet one always knew how much she suffered.
The father, James Herbert, never told his troubles either, and he
was so fierce and serious that no one ever thought of asking.
'Mis' Herbert as her neighbors called her was never heard even to
speak of her husband or her daughter. She was always pleasant, sweet-
appearing, mysterious and uncertain, and a little wandering in her
ways.
The Herberts were a silent family with their troubles, but somehow
every one who knew them always knew everything that happened.
The morning of one day when in the evening Herbert and the
EACH ONE AS SHE MAY 305
coachman John were to meet to drink together, Melanctha had to
come to the stable joyous and in the very best of humors. Her good
friend John on this morning felt very firmly how good and sweet she
was and how very much she suffered.
John was a very decent colored coachman. When he thought about
Melanctha it was as if she were the eldest of his children. Really he
felt very strongly the power in her of a woman. John's wife always
liked Melanctha and she always did all she could to make things
pleasant. And Melanctha all her life loved and respected kind and
good and considerate people. Melanctha always loved and wanted
peace and gentleness and goodness and all her life for herself poor
Melanctha could only find new ways to be in trouble.
This evening after John and Herbert had drunk awhile together,
the good John began to tell the father what a fine girl he had for a
daughter. Perhaps the good John had been drinking a good deal of
liquor, perhaps there was a gleam of something softer than the feel-
ing of a friendly elder in the way John then spoke of Melanctha.
There had been a good deal of drinking and John certainly that very
morning had felt strongly Melanctha's power as a woman. James Her-
bert was always a fierce, suspicious, serious negro, and drinking never
made him feel more open. He looked very black and evil as he sat
and listened while John grew more and more admiring as he talked
half to himself, half to the father, of the virtues and sweetness of
Melanctha.
Suddenly between them there came a moment filled full with strong
black curses, and then sharp razors flashed in the black hands, that held
them flung backward in the negro fashion, and then for some minutes
there was fierce slashing.
John was a decent, pleasant, good natured, light brown negro, but he
knew how to use a razor to do bloody slashing.
When the two men were pulled apart by the other negroes who were
in the room drinking, John had not been much wounded but James
Herbert had gotten one good strong cut that went from his right shoul-
der down across the front of his whole body. Razor fighting does not
wound very deeply, but it makes a cut that looks most nasty, for it is
so very bloody.
Herbert was held by the other negroes until he was cleaned and
plastered, and then he was put to bed to sleep off his drink and fighting.
306 MELANCTHA
The next day he came to 'where his wife and daughter lived and he
was furious.
"Where's that Melanctha, of yours?" he said to his wife, when he
saw her. "If she is to the Bishops' stables now with that yellow John, I
swear I kill her. A nice way she is going for a decent daughter. Why
don't you see to that girl better you, ain't you her mother!"
Melanctha Herbert had always been old in all her ways and she knew
very early how to use her power as a woman, and yet Melanctha with
all her inborn intense wisdom was really very ignorant of evil. Melanctha
had not yet come to understand what they meant, the things she so
often heard around her, and which were just beginning to stir strongly
in her.
Now when her father began fiercely to assail her, she did not really
know what it was that he was so furious to force from her. In every
way that he could think of in his anger, he tried to make her say a thing
she did not really know. She held out and never answered anything he
asked her, for Melanctha had a breakneck courage and she just then
badly hated her black father.
When the excitement was all over, Melanctha began to know her
power, the power she had so often felt stirring within her and which
she now knew she could use to make her stronger.
James Herbert did not win his fight with his daughter. After awhile
he forgot it as he soon forgot John and the cut of his sharp razor.
Melanctha almost forgot to hate her father, in her strong interest in the
power she now knew she had within her.
Melanctha did not care much now, any longer, to see John or his wife
or even the fine horses. This life was too quiet and accustomed and no
longer stirred her to any interest or excitement.
Melanctha now really was beginning as a woman. She was ready,
and she began to search in the streets and in dark corners to discover
men and to learn their natures and their various ways of working.
In these next years Melanctha learned many ways that lead to wisdom.
She learned the ways, and dimly in the distance she saw wisdom. These
years of learning led very straight to trouble for Melanctha, though in
these years Melanctha never did or meant anything that was really
wrong.
Girls who are brought up with care and watching can always find
moments to escape into the world, where they may learn the ways that
EACH ONE AS SHE MAY 307
lead to wisdom. For a girl raised like Melanctha Herbert, such escape
was always very simple. Often she was alone, sometimes she was with
a fellow seeker, and she strayed and stood, sometimes by railroad yards,
sometimes on the docks or around new buildings where many men were
working. Then when the darkness covered everything all over, she
would begin to learn to know this man or that. She would advance,
they would respond, and then she would withdraw a little, dimly, and
always she did not know what it was that really held her. Sometimes she
would almost go over, and then the strength in her of not really know-
ing, would stop the average man in his endeavor. It was a strange ex-
perience of ignorance and power and desire. Melanctha did not know
what it was that she so badly wanted. She was afraid, and yet she did
not understand that here she really was a coward.
Boys had never meant much to Melanctha. They had always been
too young to content her. Melanctha had a strong respect for any kind
of successful power. It was this that always kept Melanctha nearer, in
her feeling toward her virile and unendurable black father, than she
ever was in her feeling for her pale yellow, sweet-appearing mother.
The things she had in her of her mother, never made her feel respect.
In these young days, it was only men that for Melanctha held any-
thing there was of knowledge and power. It was not from men however
that Melanctha learned to really understand this power.
From the time that Melanctha was twelve until she was sixteen she
wandered, always seeking but never more than very dimly seeing wis-
dom. All this time Melanctha went on with her school learning; she
went to school rather longer than do most of the colored children.
Melanctha's wanderings after wisdom she always had to do in secret
and by snatches, for her mother was then still living and 'Mis' Herbert
always did some watching, and Melanctha with all her hard courage
dreaded that there should be much telling to her father, who came now
quite often to where Melanctha lived with her mother.
In these days Melanctha talked and stood and walked with many
kinds of men, but she did not learn to know any of them very deeply.
They all supposed her to have world knowledge and experience. They,
believing that she knew all, told her nothing, and thinking that she was
deciding with them, asked for nothing, and so though Melanctha wan-
dered widely, she was really very safe with all the wandering.
It was a very wonderful experience this safety of Melanctha in these
308 MELANCTHA
days of her attempted learning. Melanctha herself did not feel the won-
der, she only knew that for her it all had no real value.
Melanctha all her life was very keen in her sense for real experience.
.She knew she was not getting what she so badly wanted, but with all
her breakneck courage Melanctha here was a coward, and so she could
not learn to really understand.
Melanctha liked to wander, and to stand by the railroad yard, and
watch the men and the engines and the switches and everything that
was busy there, working. Railroad yards are a ceaseless fascination. They
satisfy every kind of nature. For the lazy man whose blood flows very
slowly, it is a steady soothing world of motion which supplies him with
the sense of a strong moving power. He need not work and yet he has
it very deeply; he has it even better than the man who works in it or
owns it. Then for natures that like to feel emotion without the trouble
of having any suffering, it is very nice to get the swelling in the throat,
and the fullness, and the heart beats, and all the flutter of excitement
that comes as one watches the people come and go, and hears the engine
pound and give a long drawn whistle. For a child watching through a
hole in the fence above the yord, it is a wonderful world of mystery
and movement. The child loves all the noise, and then it loves the silence
of the wind that comes before the full rush of the pounding train, that
bursts out from the tunnel where it lost itself and all its noise in dark-
ness, and the child loves all the smoke, that sometimes comes in rings,
and always puffs with fire and blue color.
For Melanctha the yard was full of the excitement of many men,
and perhaps a free and whirling future.
Melanctha came here very often and watched the men and all the
things that were so busy working. The men always had time for, "Hullo
Sis, do you want to sit on my engine," and, "Hullo, that's a pretty lookin'
yaller girl, do you want to come and see him cookin."
All the colored porters liked Melanctha. They often told her exciting
things that had happened; how in the West they went through big tun-
nels where there was no air to breathe, and then out and winding around
edges of great canyons on thin high spindling trestles, and sometimes
cars, and sometimes whole trains fell from the narrow bridges, and al-
ways up from the dark places death and all kinds of queer devils looked
up and laughed in their faces. And then they would tell how sometimes
when the train went pounding down steep slippery mountains, great
EACH ONE AS SHE MAY 309
rocks would racket and roll down around them, and sometimes would
smash in the car and kill men; and as the porters told these stories their
round, black, shining faces would grow solemn, and their color would
go grey beneath the greasy black, and their eyes would roll white in the
fear and wonder of the things they could scare themselves by telling.
There was one, big, serious, melancholy, light brown porter who often
told Melanctha stories, for he liked the way she had of listening with
intelligence and sympathetic feeling, when he told how the white men
in the far South tried to kill him because he made one of them who was
drunk and called him a damned nigger, and who refused to pay money
for his chair to a nigger, get off the train between stations. And then
this porter had to give up going to that part of the Southern country,
for all the white men swore that if he ever came there again they would
surely kill him.
Melanctha liked this serious, melancholy light brown negro very well,
and all her life Melanctha wanted and respected gentleness and good-
ness, and this man always gave her good advice and serious kindness,
and Melanctha felt such things very deeply, but she could never let them
help her or affect her to change the ways that always made her keep
herself in trouble.
Melanctha spent many of the last hours of the daylight with the por-
ters and with other men who worked hard, but when darkness came
it was always different. Then Melanctha would find herself with the,
for her, gentlemanly classes. A clerk, or a young express agent would
begin to know her, and they would stand, or perhaps, walk a little while
together.
Melanctha always made herself escape but often it was with an effort.
She did not know what it was that she so badly wanted, but with all her
courage Melanctha here was a coward, and so she could not learn to
understand.
Melanctha and some man would stand in the evening and would talk
together. Sometimes Melanctha would be with another girl and then
it was much easier to stay or to escape, for then they could make way
for themselves together, and by throwing words and laughter to each
other, could keep a man from getting too strong in his attention.
But when Melanctha was alone, and she was so, very often, she would
sometimes come very near to making a long step on the road that leads
to wisdom. Some man would learn a good deal about her in the talk,
310 MELANCTHA
never altogether truly, for Melanctha all her life did not know how to
tell a story wholly. She always, and yet not with intention, managed
to leave out big pieces which make a story very different, for when it
came to what had happened and what she had said and what it was
that she had really done, Melanctha never could remember right. The
man would sometimes come a little nearer, would detain her, would
hold her arm or make his jokes a little clearer, and then Melanctha
would always make herself escape. The man thinking that she really
had world wisdom would not make his meaning clear, and believing
that she was deciding with him he never went so fast that he could stop
her when at last she made herself escape.
And so Melanctha wandered on the edge of wisdom. "Say, Sis, why
don't you when you come here stay a little longer?" they would all ask
her, and they would hold her for an answer, and she would laugh, and
sometimes she did stay longer, but always just in time she made herself
escape.
Melanctha Herbert wanted very much to know and yet she feared
the knowledge. As she grew older she often stayed a good deal longer,
and sometimes it was almost a balanced struggle, but she always made
herself escape.
Next to the railroad yard it was the shipping docks that Melanctha
loved best when she wandered. Often she was alone, sometimes she was
with some better kind of black girl, and she would stand a long time and
watch the men working at unloading, and see the steamers do their
coaling, and she would listen with full feeling to the yowling of the
free swinging negroes, as they ran, with their powerful loose jointed
bodies and their childish savage yelling, pushing, carrying, pulling great
loads from the ships to the warehouses.
The men would call out, "Say, Sis, look out or we'll come and catch
yer," or "Hi, there, you yaller girl, come here and we'll take you sailin'."
And then, too, Melanctha would learn to know some of the serious
foreign sailors who told her all sorts of wonders, and a cook would some-
times take her and her friends over a ship and show where he made
his messes and where the men slept, and where the shops were, and
how everything was made by 'themselves, right there, on ship board.
Melanctha loved to see these dark and smelly places. She always loved
to watch and talk and listen with men who worked hard. But it was
EACH ONE AS SHE MAY 311
never from these rougher people that Melanctha tried to learn the ways
that lead to wisdom. In the daylight she always liked to talk with rough
men and to listen to their lives and about their work and their various
ways of doing, but when the darkness covered everything all over, Me-
lanctha would meet, and stand, and talk with a clerk or a young ship-
ping agent who had seen her watching, and so it was that she would
try to learn to understand.
And then Melanctha was fond of watching men work on new build-
ings. She loved to see them hoisting, digging, sawing and stone cutting.
Here, too, in the daylight, she always learned to know the common
workmen. "Heh, Sis, look out or that rock will fall on you and smash
you all up into little pieces. Do you think you would make a nice jelly?"
And then they would all laugh and feel that their jokes were very funny.
And "Say, you pretty yaller girl, would it scare you bad to stand up here
on top where I be ? See if you've got grit and come up here where I can
hold you. All you got to do is to sit still on that there rock that they're
just hoistin', and then when you get here I'll hold you tight, don't you
be scared Sis."
Sometimes Melanctha would do some of these things that had much
danger, and always with such men, she showed her power and her
breakneck courage. Once she slipped and fell from a high place. A work-
man caught her and so she was not killed, but her left arm was badly
broken.
All the men crowded around her. They admired her boldness in doing
and in bearing pain when her arm was broken. They all went along
with her with great respect to the doctor, and then they took her home
in triumph and all of them were bragging about her not squealing.
James Herbert was home where his wife lived, that day. He was
furious when he saw the workmen and Melanctha. He drove the men
away with curses so that they were all very nearly fighting, and he would
not let a doctor come in to attend Melanctha. "Why don't you see to
that girl better, you, you're her mother."
James Herbert did not fight things out now any more with his daugh-
ter. He feared her tongue, and her school learning, and the way she had
of saying things that were very nasty to a brutal black man who knew
nothing. And Melanctha just then hated him very badly in her suffering.
And so this was the way Melanctha lived the four years of her begin-
312 MELANCTHA
ning as a woman. And many things happened to Melanctha, but she
knew very well that none of them had led her on to the right way, that
certain way that was to lead her to world wisdom.
Melanctha Herbert was sixteen when she first met Jane Harden. Jane
was a negress, but she was so white that hardly any one could guess it.
Jane had had a good deal of education. She had been two years at a
colored college. She had had to leave because of her bad conduct. She
taught Melanctha many things. She taught her how to go the ways that
lead to wisdom.
Jane Harden was at this time twenty-three years old and she had had
much experience. She was very much attracted by Melanctha, and Me-
lanctha was very proud that this Jane would let her know her.
Jane Harden was not afraid to understand. Melanctha who had strong
the sense for real experience, knew that here was a woman who had
learned to understand.
Jane Harden had many bad habits. She drank a great deal, and she
wandered widely. She was safe though now, when she wanted to be safe,
in this wandering.
Melanctha Herbert soon always wandered with her. Melanctha tried
the drinking and some of the other habits, but she did not find that she
cared very much to do them. But every day she grew stronger in her
desire to really understand.
It was now no longer, even in the daylight, the rougher men that these
two learned to know in their wanderings, and for Melanctha the better
classes were now a little higher. It was no longer express agents and
clerks that she learned to know, but men in business, commercial travel-
ers, and even men above these, and Jane and she would talk and walk
and laugh and escape from them all very often. It was still the same,
the knowing of them and the always just escaping, only now for Me-
lanctha somehow it was different, for though it was always the same
thing that happened it had a different flavor, for now Melanctha was
with a woman who had wisdom, and dimly she began to see what it
was that she should understand.
It was not from the men that Melanctha learned her wisdom. It was
always Jane Harden herself who was making Melanctha begin to un-
derstand.
Jane was a roughened woman. She had power and she liked to use
it, she had much white blood and that made her see clear, she liked
EACH ONE AS SHE MAY 313
drinking and that made her reckless. Her white blood was strong in
her and she had grit and endurance and a vital courage. She was always
game, however much she was in trouble. She liked Melanctha Herbert
for the things that she had like her, and then Melanctha was young, and
she had sweetness, and a way of listening with intelligence and sym-
pathetic interest, to the stories that Jane Harden often told out of her
experience.
Jane grew always fonder of Melanctha. Soon they began to wander,
more to be together than to see men and learn their various ways of
working. Then they began not to wander, and Melanctha would spend
long hours with Jane in her room, sitting at her feet and listening to her
stories, and feeling her strength and the power of her affection, and
slowly she began to see clear before her one certain way that would be
sure to lead to wisdom.
Before the end came, the end of the two years in which Melanctha
spent all her time when she was not at school or in her home, with Jane
Harden, before these two years were finished, Melanctha had come to
see very clear, and she had come to be very certain, what it is that gives
the world its wisdom.
Jane Harden always had a little money and she had a room in the
lower part of the town. Jane had once taught in a colored school. She
had had to leave that too on account of her bad conduct. It was her drink-
ing that always made all the trouble for her, for that can never be really
covered over.
Jane's drinking was always growing worse upon her. Melanctha had
tried to do the drinking but it had no real attraction for her. ,
In the , first year, between Jane Harden and Melanctha Herbert, Jane
had been much the stronger. Jane loved Melanctha and she found her
always intelligent and brave and sweet and docile, and Jane meant to,
and before the year was over she had taught Melanctha what it is that
gives many people in the world their wisdom.
Jane had many ways in which to do this teaching. She told Melanctha
many things. She loved Melanctha hard and made Melanctha feel it
very deeply. She would be with other people and with men and with
Melanctha, and she would make Melanctha understand what everybody
wanted, and what one did with power when one had it.
Melanctha sat at Jane's feet for many hours in these days and felt
Jane's wisdom. She learned to love Jane and to have this feeling very
314 MELANCTHA
deeply. She learned a little in these days to know joy, and she was taught
too how very keenly she could suffer. It was very different this suffering
from that Melanctha sometimes had from her mother and from her very
unendurable black father. Then she was fighting and she could be strong
and valiant in her suffering, but here with Jane Harden she was long-
ing and she bent and pleaded with her suffering.
It was a very tumultuous, very mingled year, this time for Melanc-
tha, but she certainly did begin to really understand.
In every way she got it from Jane Harden. There was nothing good
or bad in doing, feeling, thinking or in talking, that Jane spared her.
Sometimes the lesson came almost too strong for Melanctha, but some-
how she always managed to endure it and so slowly, but always with
increasing strength and feeling, Melanctha began to really understand.
Then slowly, between them, it began to be all different. Slowly now
between them, it was Melanctha Herbert, who was stronger. Slowly now
they began to drift apart from one another.
Melanctha Herbert never really lost her sense that it was Jane Harden
who had taught her, but Jane did many things that Melanctha now
no longer needed. And then, too, Melanctha never could remember right
when it came to what she had done and what had happened. Melanctha
now sometimes quarreled with Jane, and they no longer went about to-
gether, and sometimes Melanctha really forgot how much she owed
to Jane Harden's teaching.
Melanctha began now to feel that she had always had world wisdom.
She really knew of course, that it was Jane who had taught her, but all
that began, to be covered over by the trouble between them, that was
now always getting stronger.
Jane Harden was a roughened woman. Once she had been very strong,
but now she was weakened in all her kinds of strength by her drinking.
Melanctha had tried the drinking but it had had no real attraction for
her.
Jane's strong and roughened nature and her drinking made it always
harder for her to forgive Melanctha, that now Melanctha did not really
need her any longer. Now it was Melanctha who was stronger and it
was Jane who was dependent on her.
Melanctha was now come to be about eighteen years old. She was a
graceful, pale yellow, good looking, intelligent, attractive negress, a little
EACH ONE AS SHE MAY 315
mysterious sometimes in her ways, and always good and pleasant, and
always ready to do things for people.
Melanctha from now on saw very little of Jane Harden. Jane did not
like that very well and sometimes she abused Melanctha, but her drink-
ing soon covered everything all over.
It was not in Melanctha's nature to really lose her sense for Jane
Harden. Melanctha all her life was ready to help Jane out in any of her
trouble, and later, when Jane really went to pieces, Melanctha always
did all that she could to help her.
But Melanctha Herbert was ready now herself to do teaching. Melanc-
tha could do anything now that she wanted. Melanctha knew now what
everybody wanted.
Melanctha had learned how she might stay a little longer; she had
learned that she must decide when she wanted really to stay longer, and
she had learned how when she wanted to, she could escape.
And so Melanctha began once more to wander. It was all now for her
very different. It was never rougher men now that she talked to, and
she did not care much now to know white men of the, for her, very
better classes. It was now something realler that Melanctha wanted,
something that would move her very deeply, something that would fill
her fully with the wisdom that was planted now within her, and that
she wanted badly, should really wholly fill her.
Melanctha these days wandered very widely. She was always alone now
when she wandered. Melanctha did not need help now to know, or
to stay longer, or when she wanted, to escape.
Melanctha tried a great many men, in these days before she was really
suited. It was almost a year that she wandered and then she met with
a young mulatto. He was a doctor who had just begun to practice. He
would most likely do well in the future, but it was not this that con-
cerned Melanctha. She found him good and strong and gentle and very
intellectual, and all her life Melanctha liked and wanted good and con-
siderate people, and then too he did not at first believe in Melanctha.
He held off and did not know what it was that Melanctha wanted. Me-
lanctha came to want him very badly. They began to know each other
better. Things began to be very strong between them. Melanctha wanted
him so badly that now she never wandered. She just gave herself to this
experience.
316 MELANCTHA
Melanctha Herbert was now, all alone, in Bridgepoint. She lived now
with this colored woman and now with that one, and she sewed, and
sometimes she taught a little in a colored school as substitute for some
teacher. Melanctha had now no home nor any regular employment.
Life was just commencing for Melanctha. She had youth and had
learned wisdom, and she was graceful and pale yellow and very pleasant,
and always ready to do things for people, and she was mysterious in her
ways and that only made belief in her more fervent.
During the year before she met Jefferson Campbell, Melanctha had
tried many kinds of men but they had none of them interested Melanc-
tha very deeply. She met them, she was much with them, she left them,
she would think perhaps this next time it wouhj be more exciting, and
always she found that for her it all had no real meaning. She could now
do everything she wanted, she knew now everything that everybody
wanted, and yet it all had no excitement for her. With these men, she
knew she could learn nothing. She wanted some one that could teach
her very deeply and now at last she was sure that she had found him,
yes she really had it, before she had thought to look if in this man she
would find it.
During this year 'Mis' Herbert as her neighbors called her, Melanc-
tha's pale yellow mother was very sick, and in this year she died.
Melanctha's father during these last years did not come very often to
the house where his wife lived and Melanctha. Melanctha was not sure
that her father was now any longer here in Bridgepoint. It was Melanctha
who was very good now to her mother. It was always Melanctha's way
to be good to any one in trouble.
Melanctha took good care of her mother. She did everything that any
woman could, she tended and soothed and helped her pale yellow
mother, and she worked hard in every way to take care of her, and make
her dying easy. But Melanctha did not in these days like her mother any
better, and her mother never cared much for this daughter who was al-
ways a hard child to manage, and who had a tongue that always could
be very nasty.
Melanctha did everything that any woman could, and at last her
mother died, and Melanctha had her buried. Melanctha's father was not
heard from, and Melanctha in all her life after, never saw or heard or
knew of anything that her father did.
It was the young doctor, Jetferson Campbell, who helped Melanctha
EACH ONE AS SHE MAY 317
toward the end, to take care of her sick mother. Jefferson Campbell had
often before seen Melanctha Herbert, but he had never liked her very
well, and he had never believed that she was any good., He had heard
something about how she wandered. He knew a little too of Jane
Harden, and he was sure that this Melanctha Herbert, who was her
friend and who wandered, would never come to any good.
Dr. Jefferson Campbell was a serious, earnest, good young joyous doc-
tor. He liked to take care of everybody and he loved his own colored
people. He always found life very easy did Jeff Campbell, and every-
body liked to have him with them. He was so good and sympathetic, and
he was so earnest and so joyous. He sang when he was happy, and he
laughed, and his was the free abandoned laughter that gives the warm
broad glow to negro sunshine.
Jeff Campbell had never yet in his life had real trouble. Jefferson's
father was a good, kind, serious, religious man. He was a very steady,
very intelligent, and very dignified, light brown, grey haired negro. He
was a butler and he had worked for the Campbell family many years,
and his father and his mother before him had been in the service of this
family as free people.
Jefferson Campbell's father and his mother had of course been regu-
larly married. Jefferson's mother was a sweet, little, pale brown, gentle
woman who reverenced and obeyed her good husband, and who wor-
shipped and admired and loved hard her good, earnest, cheery, hard
working doctor boy who was her only child.
Jeff Campbell had been raised religious by his people but religion had
never interested Jeff very much. Jefferson was very good. He loved his
people and he never hurt them, and he always did everything they
wanted and that he could to please them, but he really loved best science
and experimenting and to learn things, and he early wanted to be a
doctor, and he was always very interested in the life of the colored people.
The Campbell family had been very good to him and had helped him
on with his ambition. Jefferson studied hard, he went to a colored col-
lege, and then he learnt to be a doctor.
It was now two or three years, that he had started in to practice.
Everybody liked Jeff Campbell, he was so strong and kindly and cheer-
ful and understanding, and he laughed so with pure joy, and he always
liked to help all his own colored people.
Dr. Jeff knew all about Jane Harden. He had taken care of her in
318 MELANCTHA
some of her bad trouble. He knew about Melanctha too, though until
her mother was taken sick he had never met her. Then he was called
in to help Melanctha to take care of her sick mother. Dr. Campbell did
not like Melanctha's ways and he did not think that she would ever come
to any good.
Dr. Campbell had taken care of Jane Harden in some of her bad
trouble. Jane sometimes had abused Melanctha to him. What right had
that Melanctha Herbert who owed eve